CD 
UJ 


SUMMER 


AH 


DALLAS  LORE  SHARP 


A  SUMMER  EVENING  — NIGHT  HERONS  (page  54) 


SUMMER 


BY 

DALLAS  LORE  SHARP 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  LAY  OF  THE  LAND,"  "  THE  FACE  OF  THE  FIELDS," 

"  WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON,"  "  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAB," 

"  WINTER,7'  "  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR,"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 

ROBERT  BRUCE  HORSFALL 


BOSTON   NEW  YORK   CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 
flitertfbe  p«^  Cambridge 


S.S 


COPYRIGHT,    1913,    BY    PERRY    MASON    COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1913   AND    1914,    BY  THE   ATLANTIC    MONTHLY   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1914,    BY   THE    CENTURY    COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1914,   BY   DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE    &    CO. 

COPYRIGHT,    1914,    BY   DALLAS   LORE   SHARP 

ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


TO 
ROBERT   BRUCE   HORSFALL 

THE    FRIEND    AND    ARTIST 
OF   THESE    FOUR  BOOKS 


416188 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION ix 

I.   THE  SUMMER  AFIELD 1  - 

II.   THE  WILD  ANIMALS  AT  PLAY 9 

III.  A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  SUMMER      .      .  18 

IV.  THE  COYOTE  OF  PELICAN  POINT   .      .      .      .      .      .  27  — 1* 

V.   FROM  T  WHARF  TO  FRANKLIN  FIELD       ....  39 

VI.   A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  SUMMER  .      .    46 

VII.   THE  SEA-BIRDS'  HOME •  .    57  -  <J 

VIII.   THE  MOTHER  MURRE 65 

IX.   MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     .......    79 

I 
X.   RIDING  THE  RIM  ROCK 88 

XI.   A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  Do  THIS  SUMMER       .      .  100 

XII.   THE" CONY" 112 

NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS   .  .  123 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  SUMMER  EVENING  —  BLACK-CROWNED  NIGHT  HERONS 

Frontispiece 

RED  CLOVER  AND  BUMBLEBEE      ........  4 

RED  SALAMANDER,  OLD  AND  YOUNG 7 

NEWTS      . .  7 

HIPPOPOTAMUS  —  "!T  WAS  HIS  GAME  OF  SOLITAIRE"       .      .  9 

THE  OTTER  AND  HIS  SLIDE                 ,      .   -         ....  12 

"  FOLLOW  MY  LEADER  "     .       .      .      ...      .      .      .      .14 

BUTTERFLIES    AT    PLAY  — "  WHIRLING    OVER    MT.    HOOD'S 

POINTED   PEAK "        -          .         .         .         i         .         .         .         .         .  -      .  16 

RUBY-THROATED  HUMMINGBIRD  AND  NEST 20 

ORCHIDS ,22 

YOUNG  COWBIRD  IN  VIREO'S  NEST 25 

COYOTE —  "  WHAT  A  SHOT  !" 28 

ARGIOPE,  THE  MEADOW  SPIDER   .      ."     >  v 44 

CICADA  —  "  DOG-DAYS-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z  " 48 

"THE  BATS  FLITTING  AND  WAVERING  ABOUT"    ....  49 

RED-EYED  VIREO  —  "  Do  YOU  BELIEVE  IT  ?  " 52 

TUFTED  PUFFINS 59 


viii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BRANDT'S  CORMORANT 63 

A  MOTHER  SPIDER  WITH  HER  SACK  OF  EGGS      ....    67 

THE  FATHER  STICKLEBACK  ON  GUARD 68 

CALIFORNIA  MURRE  — "  WITH  THREATENING  BEAK  WATCHED 

THE  TWO  MEN  COME  ON  "  .      .      .      .  .      .  '    .      .75 

PETRELS  —  "SKIMMING  THE  HEAVING  SEA  LIKE  SWALLOWS"    80 
RIDING   THE   RIM   ROCK  — "  NECK   AND  NECK  WITH   A   BIG 

WHITE  STEER" ,97 

SASSAFRAS       . .  105 

DEADLY  NIGHTSHADE 106 

POISON  SUMACH 107 

POISON  IVY 108 

VIRGINIA  CREEPER      . .  109 

THE  DEADLY  MUSHROOMS      ...  110 

POKE  BERRIES       .      .       , Ill 

THE  CONY,  OR  PIKA  .  .  116 


INTRODUCTION 

IN  this  fourth  and  last  volume  of  these  outdoor 
books  I  have  taken  you  into  the  summer  fields  and, 
shall  I  hope  ?  left  you  there.  After  all,  what  better 
thing  could  I  do  ?  And  as  I  leave  you  there,  let  me 
say  one  last  serious  word  concerning  the  purpose 
of  such  books  as  these  and  the  large  subject  of 
nature-study  in  general. 

I  believe  that  a  child's  interest  in  outdoor  life  is  a 
kind  of  hunger,  as  natural  as  his  interest  in  bread 
and  butter.  He  cannot  live  on  bread  and  butter 
alone,  but  he  ought  not  to  try  to  live  without  them. 
He  cannot  be  educated  on  nature-study  alone,  but 
he  ought  not  to  be  educated  without  it.  To  learn  to 
obey  and  reason  and  feel  —  these  are  the  triple  ends 
of  education,  and  the  greatest  of  these  is  to  learn  to 
feel.  The  teacher's  word  for  obedience  ;  the  arithme- 
tic for  reasoning ;  and  for  feeling,  for  the  cultivation 
of  the  imagination,  for  the  power  to  respond  quickly 
and  deeply,  give  the  child  the  out-of-doors. 

"  If  I  could  teach  my  Rugby  boys  but  one  thing," 
said  Dr.  Arnold,  "  that  one  thing  should  be  poetry." 
Why?  Because  poetry  draws  out  the  imagination, 
quickens  and  refines  and  deepens  the  emotions.  The 
first  great  source  of  poetry  is  Nature.  Give  the  child 
poetry;  and  give  him  the  inspiration  of  the  poem, 


x  INTRODUCTION 

the  teacher  of  the  poet  —  give  him  Nature.  Make  a 
poet  of  the  child,  who  is  already  a  poet  born. 

How  can  so  essential,  so  fundamental  a  need  be- 
come a  mere  fad  of  education  ?  A  child  wants  first  to 
eat,  then  to  play,  then  he  wants  to  know  —  particu- 
larly he  wants  to  know  the  animals.  And  he  does 
know  an  elephant  from  a  kangaroo  long  before  he 
knows  a  Lincoln  from  a  Napoleon;  just  so  he  wants 
to  go  to  the  woods  long  before  he  asks  to  visit  a 
library. 

The  study  of  the  ant  in  the  school-yard  walk,  the 
leaves  on  the  school-yard  trees,  the  clouds  over  the 
school-house  roof,  the  sights,  sounds,  odors  coming 
in  at  the  school-room  windows,  these  are  essential 
studies  for  art  and  letters,  to  say  nothing  of  life. 

And  this  is  the  way  serious  men  and  women 
think  about  it.  Captain  Scott,  dying  in  the  Antarc- 
tic snows,  wrote  in  his  last  letter  to  his  wife :  "  Make 
our  boy  interested  in  natural  history  if  you  can.  It 
is  better  than  games.  Keep  him  in  the  open  air." 

I  hope  that  these  four  volumes  may  help  to  inter- 
est you  in  natural  history,  that  they  may  be  the 
means  of  taking  you  into  the  open  air  of  the  fields 
many  times  the  seasons  through. 

DALLAS  LORE  SHARP. 

MULLEIN  HILL,  February,  1914. 


SUMMER 

CHAPTER  I 

THE     SUMMER    AFIELD 

THE  word  summer,  being  interpreted,  means 
vacation ;  and  vacation,  being  interpreted, 
means  —  so  many  things  that  I  have  not  space 
in  this  book  to  name  them.  Yet  how  can  there  be  a 
vacation  without  mountains,  or  seashore,  or  the  fields, 
or  the  forests  —  days  out  of  doors  ?  My  ideal  vaca- 
tion would  have  to  be  spent  in  the  open  ;  and  this 
book,  the  larger  part  of  it,  is  the  record  of  one  of 
my  summer  vacations  —  the  vacation  of  the  summer 
of  1912.  That  was  an  ideal  vacation,  and  along  with 
my  account  of  it  I  wish  to  give  you  some  hints  on 
how  to  make  the  most  of  your  summer  chance-  to 
tramp  the  fields  and  woods. 

For  the  real  lover  of  nature  is  a  tramp ;  not  the 
kind  of  tramp  that  walks  the  railroad-ties  and  carries 
his  possessions  in  a  tomato-can,  but  one  who  follows 
the  cow-paths  to  the  fields,  who  treads  the  rabbit- 
roads  in  the  woods,  watching  the  ways  of  the  wild 
things  that  dwell  in  the  tree-tops,  and  in  the  deepest 
burrows  under  ground. 


Do  not  tell  anybody,  least  of  all  yourself,  that  you 
love  the  out-of-doors,  unless  you  have  your  own  path 
to  the  woods,  your  own  cross-cut  to  the  pond,  your 
own  particular  huckleberry-patch  and  fishing-holes 
and  friendships  in  the  fields.  The  winds,  the  rain,  the 
stars,  the  green  grass,  even  the  birds  and  a  multi- 
tude of  other  wild  folk  try  to  meet  you  more  than  half- 
way, try  to  seek  you  out  even  in  the  heart  of  the  great 
city ;  but  the  great  out-of-doors  you  must  seek,  for  it 
is  not  in  books,  nor  in  houses,  nor  in  cities.  It  is 
out  at  the  end  of  the  car-line  or  just  beyond  the 
back-yard  fence,  maybe  —  far  enough  away,  any- 
how, to  make  it  necessary  for  you  to  put  on  your 
tramping  shoes  and  with  your  good  stout  stick  go 
forth. 

You  must  learn  to  be  a  good  tramper.  You  thought 
you  learned  how  to  walk  soon  after  you  got  out  of 
the  cradle,  and  perhaps  you  did,  but  most  persons 
only  know  how  to  hobble  when  they  get  into  the  un- 
paved  paths  of  the  woods. 

With  stout,  well-fitting  shoes,  broad  in  the  toe  and 
heel;  light,  stout  clothes  that  will  not  catch  the 
briers,  good  bird-glasses,  and  a  bite  of  lunch  against 
the  noon,  swing  out  on  your  legs ;  breathe  to  the 
bottom  of  your  lungs ;  balance  your  body  on  your 
hips,  not  on  your  collar-bones,  and,  going  leisurely, 
but  not  slowly  (for  crawling  is  deadly  dull),  do  ten 
miles  up  a  mountain-side  or  through  the  brush ;  and 
if  at  the  end  you  feel  like  eating  up  ten  miles  more, 


THE   SUMMER  AFIELD  3 

then  you  may  know  that  you  can  walk,  can  tramp, 
and  are  in  good  shape  for  the  summer. 

In  your  tramping-kit  you  need  :  a  pocket-knife ; 
some  string ;  a  pair  of  field-glasses ;  a  botany-can  or 
fish-basket  on  your  back;  and  perhaps  a  notebook. 
This  is  all  and  more  than  you  need  for  every  tramp. 
To  these  things  might  be  added  a  light  camera.  It 
depends  upon  what  you  go  for.  I  have  been  afield 
all  my  life  and  have  never  owned  or  used  a  cam- 
era. But  there  are  a  good  many  things  that  I  have 
never  done.  A  camera  may  add  a  world  of  interest 
to  your  summer,  so  if  you  find  use  for  a  camera, 
don't  fail  to  make  one  a  part  of  your  tramping  outfit. 

After  all,  what  you  carry  on  your  back  or  on  your 
feet  or  in  your  hands  does  not  matter  half  so  much 
as  what  you  carry  in  your  head  and  heart  —  your 
eye,  and  spirit,  and  purpose.  For  instance,  when 
you  go  into  the  fields  have  some  purpose  in  your 
going  besides  the  indefinite  desire  to  get  out  of 
doors. 

If  you  long  for  the  wide  sky  and  the  wide  winds 
and  the  wide  slopes  of  green,  then  that  is  a  real  and  a 
definite  desire.  You  want  to  get  out,  OUT,  OUT,  be- 
cause you  have  been  shut  in.  Very  good  ;  for  you 
will  get  what  you  wish,  what  you  go  out  to  get. 
The  point  is  this:  always  go  out  for  something. 
Never  yawn  and  slouch  out  to  the  woods  as  you 
might  to  the  corner  grocery  store,  because  you  don't 
know  how  else  to  kill  time. 


4  SUMMER 

Go  with  some  purpose ;  because  you  wish  to  visit 
some  particular  spot,  see  some  bird,  find  some  flower, 
catch  some  —  fish  !  Anything  that  takes  you  into  the 
open  is  good  —  ploughing,  hoeing,  chopping,  fish- 
ing, berrying,  botanizing,  tramping.  The  aimless 

person  any- 
where is  a 
failure,  and 
he  is  sure  to 
get  lost  in  the  woods! 

It  is  a  good  plan  to  go 
frequently  over  the  same  fields, 
taking  the  beaten  path,  watch- 
ing for  the  familiar  things, 
until  you  come  to  know  your 
haunt  as  thoroughly  as  the 
fox  or  the  rabbit  knows  his. 
Don't  be  afraid  of  using  up 
a  particular  spot.  The  more 
often  you  visit  a  place  the 
richer  you  will  find  it  to  be  in 
interest  for  you. 

Now,  do  not  limit  your  in- 
terest and  curiosity  to  any 
one  kind  of  life  or  to  any  set  of  things  out  of  doors. 
Do  not  let  your  likes  or  your  prejudices  interfere 
with  your  seeing  the  whole  out-of-doors  with  all  its 
manifold  life,  for  it  is  all  interrelated,  all  related  to 
you,  all  of  interest  and  meaning.  The  clover  blossom 


THE   SUMMER  AFIELD  5 

and  the  bumblebee  that  carries  the  fertilizing  pollen 
are  related :  the  bumblebee  and  the  mouse  that  eats 
up  its  grubs  are  related;  and  every  one  knows  that 
mice  and  cats  are  related ;  thus  the  clover,  the  bumble- 
bee, the  mouse,  the  cat,  and,  finally,  the  farmer,  are 
all  so  interrelated  that  if  the  farmer  keeps  a  cat, 
the  cat  will  catch  the  mice,  the  mice  cannot  eat  the 
young  bumblebees,  the  bumblebees  can  fertilize  the 
clover,  and  the  clover  can  make  seed.  So  if  the  farmer 
wants  clover  seed  to  sow  down  a  new  field  with,  he 
must  keep  a  cat. 

I  think  it  is  well  for  you  to  have  some  one  thing 
in  which  you  are  particularly  interested.  It  may  be 
flowers  or  birds  or  shells  or  minerals.  But  as  the 
whole  is  greater  than  any  of  its  parts,  so  a  love  and 
knowledge  of  nature,  of  the  earth  and  the  sky  over 
your  head  and  under  your  feet,  with  all  that  lives 
with  you  there,  is  more  than  a  knowledge  of  its 
birds  or  trees  or  reptiles. 

But  be  on  your  guard  against  the  purpose  to  spread 
yourselves  over  too  much.  Don't  be  thin  and  super- 
ficial. Don't  be  satisfied  with  learning  the  long  Latin 
names  of  things  while  never  watching  the  ways  of 
the  things  that  have  the  names.  As  they  sat  on  the 
porch,  so  the  story  goes,  the  school  trustee  called 
attention  to  a  familiar  little  orange-colored  bug, 
with  black  spots  on  his  back,  that  was  crawling  on 
the  floor. 

"I  s'pose  you  know  what  that  is?"  he  said. 


6  SUMMER 

"Yes/'  replied  the  applicant,  with  conviction; 
"that  is  a  Coccinella  septempunctata" 

"Young  man/'  was  the  rejoinder,  "a  feller  as 
don't  know  a  ladybug  when  he  sees  it  can't  get  my 
vote  for  teacher  in  this  deestrict." 

The  "trustee "'was  right;  for  what  is  the  use  of 
knowing  that  the  little  ladybug  is  Coc-ci-nel'-la  sep- 
tem-punc-ta'-ta  when  you  do  not  know  that  she  is  a 
ladybug,  and  that  you  ought  to  say  to  her:  — 

"  Ladybug,  ladybug,  fly  away  home ; 
Your  house  is  on  fire,  your  children  alone  "  ? 

Let  us  say,  now,  that  you  are  spending  your  va- 
cation in  the  edge  of  the  country  within  twenty  miles 
of  a  great  city  such  as  Boston.  That  might  bring 
you  out  at  Hingham,  where  I  am  spending  mine.  In 
such  an  ordinary  place  (if  any  place  is  ordinary,) 
what  might  you  expect  to  see  and  watch  during  the 
summer? 

Sixty  species  of  birds,  to  begin  with !  They  will  keep 
you  busy  all  summer.  The  wild  animals,  beasts,  that 
you  will  find  depend  so  very  much  upon  your  locality 
—  woods,  waters,  rocks,  etc.  —  that  it  is  hard  to  say 
how  many  they  will  be.  Here  in  my  woods  you  might 
come  upon  three  or  four  species  of  mice,  three  species 
of  squirrels,  the  mink,  the  muskrat,  the  weasel,  the 
mole,  the  shrew,  the  fox,  the  skunk,  the  rabbit,  and 
even  a  wild  deer.  Of  reptiles  and  amphibians  you 
would  see  several  more  species  than  of  fur-bearing 
animals,  —  six  snakes,  four  common  turtles,  two  sala- 


THE   SUMMER   AFIELD  7 

manders,  frogs,  toads,  newts,  —  a  wonderfully  inter- 
esting group,  with  a  real  live  rattler  among  them  if 
you  should  go  over  to  the  Blue 
Hills,  fifteen  miles  away. 

You  will  go  many  times  into 
the  fields  before  you  can  make 
of  the  reptiles  your  friends  and 
neighbors.    But  by  and 
by  you  will  watch  them 
and  note  their  ways  with 
as  much  interest  as  you 
watch    the    other    wild 
folk  about  you.  It  is  a     < 
pretty  shallow  lover  of  RED  SALAMANDERS,  OLD  AND  YOUNG 
nature  who  jumps  upon 

a  little  snake  with  both  feet,  or  who  shivers  when  a  lit- 
tle salamander  drops  out  of  the  leaf-mould  at  his  feet. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  the 
fishes  ?  There  are  a  dozen  of 
them  in  the  stream  and  ponds 
within  the  compass  of  rny 
haunt.  They  are  a  fascina- 
ting family,  and  one  very  lit- 
tle watched  by  the  ordinary 
tramper.  But  you  are  not  or- 
dinary. Quiet  and  patience  and 
much  putting  together  of  scraps  of  observations  will 
be  necessary  if  you  are  to  get  at  the  whole  story  of 
any  fish's  life.  The  story  will  be  worth  it,  however. 


NEWTS 


8  SUMMER 

No,  I  shall  not  even  try  to  number  the  insects — 
the  butterflies,  beetles,  moths,  wasps,  bees,  bugs, 
ticks,  mites,  and  such  small  "deer"  as  you  will  find 
in  the  round  of  your  summer's  tramp.  Nor  shall 
I  try  to  name  the  flowers  and  trees,  the  ferns  and 
mosses.  It  is  with  the  common  things  that  you  ought 
now  to  become  familiar,  and  one  summer  is  all  too 
short  for  the  things  you  ought  to  see  and  hear  and 
do  in  your  vacation  out  of  doors. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    WILD    ANIMALS   AT   PLAY 

THE  watcher  of  wild  animals  never  gets  used  to 
the  sight  of  their  mirthless  sport.  In  all  other 
respects  animal  play  is  entirely  human. 
A  great  deal  of  human  play  is  serious — desperately 
serious  on  the  football-field,  and  at  the  card-table, 
as  when  a  lonely  player  is  trying  to  kill  time  with 
solitaire. 

I  have  watched  a  great  ungainly  hippopotamus 
for  hours  trying  to  do  the  same  solemn  thing  by  cuff- 
ing a  croquet-ball  back  and  forth  from  one  end  of 


his  cage  to  the  other.  His  keepers  told  me  that  with- 
out the  plaything  the  poor  caged  giant  would  fret  and 
worry  himself  to  death.  It  was  his  game  of  solitaire. 


10  SUMMER 

In  all  their  games  of  rivalry  the  animals  are  seri- 
ous as  humans,  and,  forgetting  the  fun,  often  fall  to 
fighting  —  a  sad  case,  indeed.  But  brutes  are  brutes. 
We  cannot  expect  anything  better  of  the  animals. 
Only  this  morning  the  whole  flock  of  chickens  in 
the  hen-yard  started  suddenly  on  the  wild  flap  to  see 
which  would  beat  to  the  back  fence  and  wound  up  on 
the  "  line  "  in  a  free  fight,  two  of  the  cockerels  tearing 
the  feathers  from  each  other  in  a  desperate  set-to. 

You  have  seen  puppies  fall  out  in  the  same  human 
fashion,  and  kittens  also,  and  older  folk  as  well.  I 
have  seen  a  game  of  wood-tag  among  friendly  gray 
squirrels  come  to  a  finish  in  a  fight.  As  the  crows 
pass  over  during  the  winter  afternoon,  you  will  notice 
their  play  —  racing  each  other  through  the  air,  diving, 
swooping,  cawing  in  their  fun,  when  suddenly  some 
one's  temper  snaps,  and  there  is  a  mix-up  in  the  air. 

They  can  get  angry,  but  they  cannot  laugh.  I 
once  saw  what  I  thought  was  a  twinkle  of  merri- 
ment, however,  in  an  elephant's  eye.  It  was  at  the 
circus  several  years  ago.  The  keeper  had  just  set  down 
for  one  of  the  elephants  a  bucket  of  water  which  a  per- 
spiring youth  had  brought  in.  The  big  beast  sucked 
it  quietly  up,  —  the  whole  of  it, — swung  gently  around 
as  if  to  thank  the  perspiring  boy,  then  soused  him, 
the  whole  bucketful!  Everybody  roared,  and  one  of 
the  other  elephants  joined  in  with  trumpetings,  so 
huge  and  jolly  was  the  joke. 

The  elephant  who  played  the  trick  looked  solemn 


THE   WILD   ANIMALS  AT   PLAY  11 

enough,  except  for  a  twitch  at  the  lips  and  a  glint  in 
the  eye.  There  is  something  of  a  smile  about  every 
elephant's  lips,  to  be  sure,  and  fun  is  so  contagious 
that  one  should  hesitate  to  say  that  he  saw  an  ele- 
phant laugh.  But  if  that  elephant  did  n't  laugh,  it 
was  not  his  fault. 

From  the  elephant  to  the  inf  usorian,  the  microscopic 
animal  of  a  single  cell  known  as  the  paramcecium,  is 
a  far  cry  —  to  the  extreme  opposite  end  of  the  ani- 
mal kingdom,  worlds  apart.  Yet  I  have  seen  Para- 
mcecium  caudatum  at  play  in  a  drop  of  water 
under  a  compound  microscope,  as  I  have  seen  ele- 
phants at  play  in  their  big  bath-tub  at  the  zoological 
gardens. 

Place  a  drop  of  stagnant  water  under  your  micro- 
scope and  watch  these  atoms  of  life  for  yourself.  In- 
visible to  the  naked  eye,  they  are  easily  followed  on 
the  slide  as  they  skate  and  whirl  and  chase  one  another 
to  the  boundaries  of  their  playground  and  back  again, 
first  one  of  them  "it,"  then  another.  They  stop  to 
eat,  they  slow  up  to  divide  their  single-celled  bodies 
into  two  cells,  the  two  cells  now  two  living  creatures 
where  a  moment  before  they  were  but  one,  both  of 
them  swimming  off  immediately  to  feed  and  multiply 
and  play. 

Play  seems  to  be  as  natural  and  as  necessary  to 
the  wild  animals  as  it  is  to  human  beings.  Like  us 
the  animals  play  hardest  while  young,  but  as  some 
human  children  never  outgrow  their  youth  and  love 


12 


SUMMER 


of  play,  so  there  are  old  animals  that  never  grow 
too  fat  nor  too  stiff  nor  too  stupid  to  play. 

The  condition  of 
the  body  has  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  the 
state  of  the  spirit.  J:- 
The  sleek,  lithe  otter 
could   not  possibly 
grow  fat.  He  keeps  in 
trim  because  he  cannot 
help  it,  perhaps,  but  however 
that  may  be,  he  is  a  very  boy 
for  play,  and  even  goes  so 
himself  a  slide  or  chute 
diving  down  it  into  the 
in  one  of  the  maga- 
otter  in  the  New  York 
that     swam    and 
stone  balanced  on 

Building     a 
children  used  to 
made     for      us 
slanting    cellar- 


far  as  to  build 
for  the  fun  of 
water.  A  writer 
zines  tells  of  an 
Zoological    Park 
dived  with  a  round 
his  head. 

slide  is  more  than  we 
do,  for  we  had   ready- 
grandfather's    two    big 
doors,  down  which  we  slid 
and  slid  and  slid  till  the 
wood    was     scoured 
white    and    slippery 
with  the  sliding.  The 
otter  loves  to  slide. 
Up  he  climbs  on  the 


THE   WILD   ANIMALS   AT   PLAY  13 

bank,  then  down  he  goes — splash  —  into  the  stream. 
Up  he  climbs  and  down  he  goes  —  time  after  time, 
day  after  day.  There  is  nothing  like  a  slide,  unless 
it  is  a  cellar-door. 

How  much  of  a  necessity  to  the  otter  is  his  play, 
one  would  like  to  know — what  he  would  give  up 
for  it,  and  how  he  would  do  deprived  of  it.  In  the 
case  of  Pups,  my  neighbor's  beautiful  young  col- 
lie, play  seems  more  needful  than  food.  There  are 
no  children,  no  one,  to  play  with  him  there,  so 
that  the  sight  of  my  small  boys  sets  him  almost 
frantic. 

His  efforts  to  induce  a  hen  or  a  rooster  to  play 
with  him  are  pathetic.  The  hen  cannot  understand. 
She  has  n't  a  particle  of  play  in  her  anyhow,  but 
Pups  cannot  get  that  through  his  head.  He  runs 
rapidly  around  her,  drops  on  all  fours  flat,  swings 
his  tail,  cocks  his  ears,  looks  appealingly  and  barks 
a  few  little  cackle-barks,  as  nearly  hen-like  as  he  can 
bark  them,  then  dashes  off  and  whirls  back  —  while 
the  hen  picks  up  another  bug.  She  never  sees  Pups. 
The  old  white  coon  cat  is  better;  but  she  is  usually 
up  the  miff-tree.  Pups  steps  on  her,  knocks  her  over, 
or  otherwise  offends,  especially  when  he  tags  her  out 
into  the  fields  and  spoils  her  hunting.  The  Society  for 
the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  ought  to  send 
some  child  or  puppy  out  to  play  with  Pups  of  a 
Saturday. 

I  doubt  if  among  the  lower  forms  of  animals  play 


14 


SUMMER 


holds  any  such  prominent  place  as  with  the  dog  and 
the  keen-witted,  intelligent  otter.  To  catch  these 
lower  animals  at  play  is  a  rare  experience.  One  of 
our  naturalists  describes  the  game  of  "follow  my 
leader, "  as  he  watched  it  played  by  a  school  of  min- 
nows—  a  most  unusual  record,  but  not  at  all  hard  to 
believe,  for  I  saw  recently,  from  the  bridge  in  the 
Boston  Public  Garden,  a  school  of  goldfish  playing 
at  something  very  much  like  it. 

This  naturalist  was  lying  stretched  out  upon  an  old 
bridge,  watching  the  minnows  through  a  large  crack 
between  the  planks,  when  he  saw  one  leap  out  of  the 
water  over  a  small  twig  floating  at  the  surface.  In- 
stantly another  minnow  broke  the  water  and  flipped 


over  the  twig,  followed  by  another  and  another,  the 
whole  school,  as  so  many  sheep,  or  so  many  children, 
following  the  leader  over  the  twig. 

The  love  of  play  seems  to  be  one  of  the  elemental 
needs  of  all  life  above  the  plants,  and  the  games  of 


THE   WILD   ANIMALS   AT   PLAY  15 

us  human  children  seem  to  have  been  played  before 
the  dry  land  was,  when  there  were  only  water  babies 
in  the  world,  for  certainly  the  fish  never  learned  "  fol- 
low my  leader"  from  us.  Nor  did  my  young  bees 
learn  from  us  their  game  of  "prisoners'  base"  which 
they  play  almost  every  summer  noontime  in  front  of 
the  hives.  And  what  is  the  game  the  flies  play  about 
the  cord  of  the  drop-light  in  the  centre  of  the  kitchen 
ceiling? 

One  of  the  most  interesting  animal  games  that  I 
ever  saw  was  played  by  a  flock  of  butterflies  on  the 
very  top  of  Mount  Hood,  whose  pointed  snow-piled 
peak  looks  down  from  the  clouds  over  the  whole  vast 
State  of  Oregon. 

Mount  Hood  is  an  ancient  volcano,  eleven  thou- 
sand two  hundred  twenty-five  feet  high.  Some  seven 
thousand  feet  or  more  up,  we  came  to  "  Tie-up 
Rock  "  —  the  place  on  the  climb  where  the  glacier 
snows  lay  before  us  and  we  were  tied  up  to  one  an- 
other and  all  of  us  fastened  by  rope  to  the  guide. 

From  this  point  to  the  peak,  it  was  sheer  deep 
snow.  For  the  last  eighteen  hundred  feet  we  clung  to 
a  rope  that  was  anchored  on  the  edge  of  the  crater 
at  the  summit,  and  cut  oar  steps  as  we  climbed. 

Once  we  had  gained  the  peak,  we  lay  down  behind 
a  pile  of  sulphurous  rock,  out  of  the  way  of  the  cut- 
ting wind,  and  watched  the  steam  float  up  from  the 
crater,  with  the  widest  world  in  view  that  I  ever 
turned  my  eyes  upon. 


16 


SUMMER 


The  draft  pulled  hard  about  the  openings  among 
the  rock-piles,  but  hardest  up  a  flue,  or  chimney,  that 

was  left  in  the  edge  of  the 
crater-rim  where   parts  of 
the     rock     had 
fallen  away. 

As  we  lay  at 
the  side  of  this 
flue,  we  soon  dis- 
covered that  but- 
terflies were  hov- 
ering   about    us; 
no,  not  hovering, 
but  flying  swiftly 
up    between    the 
rocks  from  some- 
where   down    the 
flue.      I     could 
scarcely  believe  my 
eyes.     What   could 
any  living  thing  be 
doing  here? — and 
of  all   things,  butter- 
flies ?    This  was  three  or  four 
thousand  feet  above  the  last  ves- 
tige of  vegetation,  a  mere  point 
of  volcanic  rock  (the  jagged  edge-piece  of  an  old 
crater)  wrapped  in  eternal  ice  and  snow,  with  sul- 
phurous gases  pouring  over  it,  and  across  it  blowing 


THE   WILD   ANIMALS   AT   PLAY  17 

a  wind  that  would  freeze  as  soon  as  the  sun  was  out 
of  the  sky. 

But  here  were  real  butterflies.  I  caught  two  or 
three  of  them  and  found  them  to  be  vanessas  (  Van- 
essa calif ornica],  a  close  relative  of  our  mourning- 
cloak  butterfly.  They  were  all  of  one  species,  appar- 
ently, but  what  were  they  doing  here  ? 

Scrambling  to  the  top  of  the  piece  of  rock  behind 
which  I  had  been  resting,  I  saw  that  the  peak  was 
alive  with  butterflies,  and  that  they  were  flying  — 
over  my  head,  out  down  over  the  crater,  and  out  of 
sight  behind  the  peak,  whence  they  reappeared,  whirl- 
ing up  the  flue  past  me  on  the  wings  of  the  draft  that 
pulled  hard  through  it,  to  sail  down  over  the  crater 
again,  and  again  to  be  caught  by  the  draft  and  pulled 
up  the  flue,  to  their  evident  delight,  up  and  out  over 
the  peak,  where  they  could  again  take  wings,  as  boys 
take  their  sleds,  and  so  down  again  for  the  fierce  up- 
ward draft  that  bore  them  whirling  over  Mount 
Hood's  pointed  peak. 

Here  they  were,  thousands  of  feet  above  the  snow- 
line,  where  there  was  no  sign  of  vegetation,  where 
the  heavy  vapors  made  the  air  to  smell,  where  the 
very  next  day  a  wild  snowstorm  wrapped  its  frozen 
folds  about  the  peak  —  here  they  were,  butterflies, 
playing,  a  host  of  them,  like  so  many  schoolboys  on 
the  first  coasting  snow  ! 


CHAPTER  III 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS    TO    SEE    THIS  SUMMER 


THE  dawn,  the  breaking  dawn !  I  know  noth- 
ing lovelier,  nothing  fresher,  nothing  newer, 
purer,  sweeter  than  a  summer  dawn.  I  am 
just  back  from  one  — from  the  woods  and  cornfields 
wet  with  dew,  the  meadows  and  streams  white  with 
mist,  and  all  the  world  of  paths  and  fences  running 
off  into  luring  spaces  of  wavering,  lifting,  beckon- 
ing horizons  where  shrouded  forms  were  moving  and 
hidden  voices  calling.  By  noontime  the  buzz-saw  of 
the  cicada  will  be  ripping  the  dried  old  stick  of  this 
August  day  into  splinters  and  sawdust.  No  one  could 
imagine  that  this  midsummer  noon  at  90°  in  the 
shade  could  have  had  so  May  like  a  beginning. 

II 

I  said  in  "The  Spring  of  the  Year"  that  you 
should  see  a  farmer  ploughing,  then  a  few  weeks  later 
the  field  of  sprouting  corn.  Now  in  July  or  August 
you  must  see  that  field  in  silk  and  tassel,  blade  and 
stalk  standing  high  over  your  head. 

You  might  catch  the  same  sight  of  wealth  in  a  cot- 
ton-field, if  cotton  is  "  king"  in  your  section;  or  in  a 


THINGS   TO   SEE   THIS   SUMMER          19 

vast  wheat-field,  if  wheat  is  your  king ;  or  in  a  potato- 
field  if  you  live  in  Maine  —  but  no,  not  in  a  potato- 
field.  It  is  all  underground  in  a  potato-field.  Nor 
can  cotton  in  the  South,  or  wheat  in  the  Northwest, 
give  you  quite  the  depth  and  the  ranked  and  ordered 
wealth  of  long,  straight  lines  of  tall  corn. 

Then  to  hear  a  summer  rain  sweep  down  upon  it 
and  the  summer  wind  run  swiftly  through  it !  You 
must  see  a  great  field  of  standing  corn. 

Ill 

Keep  out  from  under  all  trees,  stand  away  from 
all  tall  poles,  but  get  somewhere  in  the  open  and 
watch  a  blue-black  thunderstorm  come  up.  It  is  one 
of  the  wonders  of  summer,  one  of  the  shows  of  the 
sky,  a  thing  of  terrible  beauty  that  I  must  confess 
I  cannot  look  at  without  dread  and  a  feeling  of  awe 
that  rests  like  a  load  upon  me. 

"  All  heaven  and  earth  are  still  —  though  not  in  sleep, 
But  breathless,  as  we  grow  when  feeling  most; 
And  silent,  as  we  stand  in  thoughts  too  deep  :  — 

The  sky  is  changed  !  —  and  such  a  change  !  Oh  night, 
And  storm,  and  darkness,  ye  are  wondrous  strong, 

Yet  lovely  in  your  strength 

Far  along, 

From  peak  to  peak  the  rattling  crags  among, 
Leaps  the  live  thunder  !   Not  from  one  lone  cloud, 
But  every  mountain  now  hath  found  a  tongue, 
And  Jura  answers,  through  her  misty  shroud, 
Back  to  the  joyous  Alps  who  call  to  her  aloud." 


20 


SUMMER 


IV 

But  there  are  many  smaller,  individual  things  to 
be  seen  this  summer,  and  among  them,  notable  for 
many  reasons,  is  a  hummingbird's  nest.  "  When 
completed  it  is  scarcely  larger  than  an  English  wal- 
nut and  is  usually  sad- 
dled on  a  small  hori- 
zontal limb  of  a  tree  or 
shrub  frequently  many 
iwnspTesEsaa^  ^eefc  fr°m  tne  ground, 
it  It  is  composed  almost 

n^^>:'-r-; — ''^P^^I^P?  i^<&*^  .  -        i  t> 

entirely  or 
*-^  soft  plant 
fibers,  frag- 
ments of  spi- 
ders' webs 
sometimes 
being  used 

to  hold  them  in  shape.  The  sides  are  thickly  studded 
with  bits  of  lichen,  and  practiced,  indeed,  is  the  eye 
of  the  man  who  can  distinguish  it  from  a  knot  on 
the  limb." 

This  is  the  smallest  of  birds'  nests  and  quite  as 
rare  and  difficult  to  find  as  any  single  thing  that 
you  can  go  out  to  look  for.  You  will  stumble  upon 
one  now  and  then ;  but  not  many  in  a  whole  life- 
time. Let  it  be  a  test  of  your  keen  eye  —  this  find- 
ing of  a  little  hummer's  nest  with  its  two  white  eggs 


THINGS   TO   SEE   THIS   SUMMER          21 

the  size  of  small  pea-beans  or  its  two  tiny  young 
that  are  up  and  off  on  their  marvelous  wings  within 
three  weeks  from  the  time  the  eggs  are  laid ! 


Have  you  read  Mr.  William  L.  Finley's  story  of 
the  California  condor's  nest  ?  The  hummingbird 
young  is  oat  and  gone  within  three  weeks ;  but  the 
condor  young  is  still  in  the  care  of  its  watchful  par- 
ents three  months  after  it  is  hatched.  You  ought  to 
watch  the  slow,  guarded  youth  of  one  of  the  larger 
hawks  or  owls  during  the  summer.  Such  birds 
build  very  early,  —  before  the  snow  is  gone  some- 
times, —  but  they  are  to  be  seen  feeding  their  young 
far  into  the  summer.  The  wide  variety  in  bird-life, 
both  in  size  and  habits,  will  be  made  very  plain  to 
you  if  you  will  watch  the  nests  of  two  such  birds  as 
the  hummer  and  the  vulture  or  the  eagle. 

VI 

This  is  the  season  of  flowers.  But  what  among 
them  should  you  especially  see?  Some  time  ago  one 
of  the  school-teachers  near  me  brought  in  a  list 
of  a  dozen  species  of  wild  orchids,  gathered  out  of 
the  meadows,  bogs,  and  woods  about  the  neighbor- 
hood. Can  you  do  as  well? 

Suppose,  then,  that  you  try  to  find  as  many.  They 
were  the  pink  lady's-slipper ;  the  yellow  lady's-slip 
per;  the  yellow  f ringed-orchis  (Habenaria  ciliaris) ; 


22 


SUMMER 


the  ladies'-tresses,  two  species ;  the  rattlesnake-plan- 
tain ;  arethusa,  or  Indian  pink ;  calopogon,  or  grass 

pink ;  pogonia,  or 
snake-mouth  (ophi- 
oglossoides  and  ver- 
ticillata) ;  the  ragged 
f  ringed-orchis;  and 
the  showy  or  spring 
orchis.  Arethusa  and 
the  showy  orchis 
really  belong  to  the 
spring  but  the  others 
will  be  task  enough 
for  you,  and  one  that 
will  give  point  and 
purpose  to  your  wan- 
afield  this 


derings 
summer. 


VII 

There  are  a  certain 
number  of  moths  and 
butterflies  that  you 
should  see  and  know 
also.  If  one  could 
come  to  know,  say, 
one  h  undred  and  fifty 
flowers  and  the  moths 
and  butterflies  that  visit  them  (for  the  flower  and  its 


ORCHIDS 

1.  Arelhusa  bulbosa 

2.  Pogonia  ophioglossoides 

3.  Pink  Lady's-Slipper 

4.  Yellow  Lady's-Slipper 

5.  Showy  Orchis 


THINGS   TO  SEE   THIS   SUMMER          23 

insect  pollen-carrier  are  to  be  thought  of  and  studied 
together),  one  would  have  an  excellent  speaking 
acquaintance  with  the  blossoming  out-of-doors. 

Now,  among  the  butterflies  you  ought  to  know 
the  mourning-cloak,  or  vanessa;  the  big  red-brown 
milkweed  butterfly ;  the  big  yellow  tiger  swallow- 
tail ;  the  small  yellow  cabbage  butterfly;  the  painted 
beauty  ;  the  red  admiral ;  the  common  f  ritillary  ;  the 
common  wood-nymph  —  but  I  have  named  enough 
for  this  summer,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  1  have  not 
named  the  green-clouded  or  Troilus  butterfly,  and 
Asterias,  the  black  swallowtail,  and  the  red-spotted 
purple,  and  the  viceroy. 

Among  the  moths  to  see  are  the  splendid  Pro- 
methea,  Cecropia,  bullseye,  Polyphemus,  and  Luna, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  hummingbird  moth,  and  the 
sphinx,  or  hawk,  moths,  especially  the  large  one  that 
feeds  as  a  caterpillar  upon  the  tomato-vines,  Ma-cros- 
i-la  quin-que-mac-u-la'-ta. 

VIII 

There  is  a  like  list  of  interesting  beetles  and  other 
insects,  that  play  a  large  part  in  even  your  affairs, 
which  you  ought  to  watch  during  the  summer :  the 
honeybee,  the  big  droning  golden  bumblebee,  the 
large  white-faced  hornet  that  builds  the  paper  nests 
in  the  bushes  and  trees,  the  gall-flies,  the  ichneumon- 
flies,  the  burying  beetle,  the  tumble-bug  beetle,  the 
dragon-fly,  the  caddis-fly  —  these  are  only  a  few  of 


24  SUMMER 

a  whole  world  of  insect  folk  about  you,  whose  habits 
and  life-histories  are  of  utmost  importance  and  of 
tremendous  interest.  You  will  certainly  believe  it  if 
you  will  read  the  Peckhams'  book  called  "  Wasps, 
Social  and  Solitary,"  or  the  beautiful  and  fascinating 
insect  stories  by  the  great  French  entomologist 
Fabre.  Get  also  "  Every-day  Butterflies,"  by  Scud- 
der ;  and  "  Moths  and  Butterflies,"  by  Miss  Dicker- 
son,  and  "  Insect  Life,"  by  Kellogg. 

IX 

You  see  I  cannot  stop  with  this  list  of  the  things. 
That  is  the  trouble  with  summer  —  there  is  too  much 
of  it  while  it  lasts,  too  much  variety  and  abundance 
of  life.  One  is  simply  compelled  to  limit  one's  self 
to  some  particular  study,  and  to  pick  up  mere  scraps 
from  other  fields. 

But,  to  come  back  to  the  larger  things  of  the  out- 
of-doors,  you  should  see  the  mist  some  summer  morn- 
ing very  early  or  some  summer  evening,  sheeted 
and  still  over  a  winding  stream  or  pond,  especially 
in  the  evening  when  the  sun  has  gone  down  behind 
the  hill,  the  flame  has  faded  from  the  sky,  and  over 
the  rim  of  the  circling  slopes  pours  the  soft,  cool 
twilight,  with  a  breeze  as  soft  and  cool,  and  a  spirit 
that  is  prayer.  For  then  from  out  the  deep  shadows 
of  the  wooded  shore,  out  over  the  pond,  a  thin  wrhite 
veil  will  come  creeping  —  the  mist,  the  breath  of  the 
sleeping  water,  the  soul  of  the  pond ! 


THINGS   TO   SEE   THIS   SUMMER 


25 


You  should  see  it  rain  down  little  toads  this  sum- 
mer—  if  you  can!  There  are  persons  who  claim  to 
have  seen  it.  But  I  never  have.  I  have  stood  on 
Maurice  River  Bridge,  however,  and  apparently  had 
them  pelting  down  upon  my  feet  as  the  big  drops  of 
the  July  shower  struck  the  planks  —  myriads  of  tiny 
toads  covering  the  bridge  across  the  river  !  Did  they 
rain  down?  No,  they  had  been  hiding  in  the  dirt 
between  the  planks  and  hopped  out  to  meet  the  sweet 
rain  and  to  soak  their  little  thirsty  skins  full. 

XI 

You  should  see  a  cowbird's  young  in  a  vireo's  nest 
and  the  efforts  of  the  poor  deceived  parents  to  sat- 
isfy its  insatiable  ap- 
petite at  the  expense 
of  their  own  young 
ones'  lives !  Such  a 
sight  will  set  you  to 
thinking. 

XII 

I  shall  not  tell  you 
what  else  you  should  see,  for  the  whole  book  could 
be  filled  with  this  one  chapter,  and  then  you  might 
lose  your  forest  in  your  trees.  The  individual  tree 
is  good  to  look  at  —  the  mighty  wide-limbed  hem- 


26  SUMMER 

lock  or  pine;  but  so  is  a  whole  dark,  solemn  forest 
of  hemlocks  and  pines  good  to  look  at.  Let  us  come 
to  the  out-of-doors  with  our  study  of  the  separate, 
individual  plant  or  thing ;  but  let  us  go  on  to  Nature, 
and  not  stop  with  the  individual  thing. 


W 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  COYOTE  OF  PELICAN  POINT 

"E  have  stopped  the  plumers,"  said  the 
game- warden,  "and  we  are  holding  the 
market-hunters  to  something  like  de- 
cency ;  but  there 's  a  pot-hunter  yonder  on  Pelican 
Point  that  I've  got  to  do  up  or  lose  my  job." 

Pelican  Point  was  the  end  of  a  long,  narrow  pe- 
ninsula that  ran  out  into  the  lake,  from  the  oppo- 
site shore,  twelve  miles  across  from  us.  We  were 
in  the  Klamath  Lake  Reservation  in  southern  Ore- 
gon, one  of  the  greatest  wild-bird  preserves  in  the 
world. 

Over  the  point,  as  we  drew  near,  the  big  white 
pelicans  were  winging,  and  among  them,  as  our  boat 
came  up  to  the  rocks,  rose  a  colony  of  black  cormo- 
rants. The  peninsula  is  chiefly  of-  volcanic  origin, 
composed  of  crumbling  rock  and  lava,  and  ends  in 
well-stratified  cliffs  at  the  point.  Patches  of  scraggly 
sagebrush  grew  here  and  there,  and  out  near  the 
cliffs  on  the  sloping  lava  sides  was  a  field  of  golden 
California  poppies. 

The  gray,  dusty  ridge  in  the  hot  sun,  with  cliff 
swallows  and  cormorants  and  the  great  pouched  pel- 


28  SUMMER 

leans  as  inhabitants,  seemed  the  last  place  that  a 
pot-hunter  would  frequent.  What  could  a  pot-hunter 
find  here?  I  wondered. 

We  were  pulling  the  boat  up  on  the  sand  at  a 
narrow  neck  in   the   peninsula,  when    the   warden 


touched  my  arm.  "  Up  there  near  the  sky-line  among 
the  sage!  What  a  shot!" 

I  was  some  seconds  in  making  out  the  head  and 
shoulders  of  a  coyote  that  was  watching  us  from 
the  top  of  the  ridge. 

"The  rascal  knows/'  went  on  the  warden,  "I 
have  no  gun;  he  can  smell  a  gun  clear  across  the, 
lake.  I  have  tried  for  three  years  to  get  that  fellow. 
He's  the  terror  of  the  whole  region,  and  especially 
of  the  Point;  if  I  don't  get  him  soon,  he'll  clean 
out  the  pelican  colony. 

"Why  don't  I  shoot  him?  Poison  him?  Trap 
him?  I  have  offered  fifty  dollars  for  his  hide.  Why 
don't  I?  I'll  show  you.  Now  you  watch  the  critter 
as  I  lead  you  up  the  slope  toward  him." 

We  had  not  taken  a  dozen  steps  when  I  found 
myself  staring  hard  at  the  place  where  the  coyote 
had  been,  but  not  at  the  coyote,  for  he  was  gone. 


THE   COYOTE    OF   PELICAN   POINT        29 

He  had  vanished  before  my  eyes.  I  had  not  seen  him 
move,  although  I  had  been  watching  him  steadily. 

"Queer,  isn't  it?"  said  the  warden.  "It's  not 
his  particular  dodge,  for  every  old  coyote  that  has 
been  hunted  learns  to  work  it;  but  I  never  knew 
one  that  had  it  down  so  fine  as  this  sinner.  There's 
next  to  nothing  here  for  him  to  skulk  behind.  Why, 
he  has  given  my  dog  the  slip  right  here  on  the  bare 
rock!  But  I'll  fix  him  yet," 

I  did  not  have  to  be  persuaded  to  stay  overnight 
with  the  warden  for  the  coyote-hunt  the  next  day. 
The  warden,  I  found,  had  fallen  in  with  a  Mr. 
Harris,  a  homesteader,  who  had  been  something  of 
a  professional  coyote-hunter.  Harris  had  just  arrived 
in  southern  Oregon,  and  had  brought  with  him  his 

O  7  O 

dogs,  a  long,  graceful  greyhound,  and  his  fighting 
mate,  a  powerful  Russian  wolfhound;  both  were 
crack  coyote  dogs  from  down  Saskatchewan.  He 
had  accepted  the  warden's  ofiPer  of  fifty  dollars  for 
the  hide  of  the  coyote  of  Pelican  Point,  and  was  now 
on  his  way  round  the  lake. 

The  outfit  appeared  late  the  next  day,  and  con- 
sisted of  the  two  dogs,  a  horse  and  buckboard,  and 
a  big,  empty  dry-goods  box. 

I  had  hunted  possums  in  the  gum  swamps  of  the 
South  with  a  stick  and  a  gunny-sack,  but  this  rig, 
on  the  rocky,  roadless  shores  of  the  lake — a  dry- 
goods  box  for  coyotes! — beat  any  hunting  combina- 
tion I  had  ever  seen. 


30  SUMMER 

We  had  pitched  the  tent  on  the  south  shore  of 
the  point  where  the  peninsula  joined  the  mainland, 
and  were  finishing  our  supper,  when  not  far  from 
us,  back  on  shore,  we  heard  the  doleful  yowl  of  the 
coyote. 

We  were  on  our  feet  in  an  instant. 

"There  he  is,"  said  the  warden,  "lonesome  for  a 
little  play  with  your  dogs,  Mr.  Harris." 

There  was  still  an  hour  and  a  half  of  good  light, 
and  Harris  untied  his  dogs.  I  had  never  seen  the 
coyote  hunted,  and  was  greatly  interested.  Harris, 
with  his  dogs  close  in  hand,  led  us  directly  away 
from  where  we  had  heard  the  coyote  bark.  Then  we 
stopped  and  sat  down.  At  my  look  of  inquiry,  Har- 
ris smiled. 

"Oh,  no,  we're  not  after  coyotes  to-night, %  not 
that  coyote,  anyhow,"  he  said.  "You  know  a  coyote 
is  made  up  of  equal  parts  of  curiosity,  cowardice, 
and  craft ;  and  it 's  a  long  hunt  unless  you  can  get 
a  lead  on  his  curiosity.  We  are  not  out  for  him. 
He  sees  that.  In  fact,  we'll  amble  back  now — but 
we  '11  manage  to  get  up  along  the  crest  of  that  little 
ridge  where  he  is  sitting,  so  that  the  dogs  can  fol- 
low him  whichever  way  he  runs.  You  hunt  coyotes 
wholly  by  sight,  you  know." 

The  little  trick  worked  perfectly.  The  coyote, 
curious  to  see  what  we  were  doing,  had  risen  to  his 
feet,  and  stood,  plainly  outlined  against  the  sky.  He 
was  entirely  unsuspecting,  and  as  we  approached, 


THE   COYOTE   OF   PELICAN   POINT        31 

only  edged  and  backed,  more  apparently  to  get  a 
sight  of  the  dogs  behind  us  than  through  any  fear. 

Suddenly  Harris  stepped  from  before  the  dogs, 
pointed  them  toward  the  coyote,  and  slipped  their 
leashes.  The  hounds  were  trained  to  the  work.  There 
was  just  an  instant's  pause,  a  quick  yelp,  then  two 
doubling,  reaching  forms  ahead  of  us,  with  a  little 
line  of  dust  between. 

The  coyote  saw  them  coming,  and  started  to  run, 
not  hurriedly,  however,  for  he  had  had  many  a  run 
before.  He  was  not  afraid,  and  kept  looking  behind 
to  see  what  manner  of  dog  was  after  him  this  time. 

But  he  was  not  long  in  making  up  his  mind  that 
this  was  an  entirely  new  kind,  for  in  less  than  three 
minutes  the  hounds  had  halved  the  distance  that 
separated  him  from  them.  At  first,  the  big  wolf- 
hound was  in  the  lead.  Then,  as  if  it  had  taken  him 
till  this  time  to  find  all  four  of  his  long  legs,  the  grey- 
hound pulled  himself  together,  and  in  a  burst  of  speed 
that  was  astonishing,  passed  his  heavier  companion. 

We  raced  along  the  ridge  to  see  the  finish.  But 
the  coyote  ahead  of  the  dogs  was  no  novice.  He 
knew  the  game  perfectly.  He  saw  the  gap  closing 
behind  him.  Had  he  been  young,  he  would  have 
been  seized  by  fear;  would  have  darted  right  and 
left,  mouthing  and  snapping  in  abject  terror.  In- 
stead of  that,  he  dug  his  nails  into  the  shore,  and 
with  all  his  wits  about  him,  sped  for  the  desert.  The 
greyhound  was  close  behind  him. 


32  SUMMER 

I  held  my  breath.  Harris,  I  think,  would  have 
taken  his  fifty  dollars  then  and  there !  And  the  warden 
would  have  handed  it  to  him,  despite  his  past  experi- 
ence with  the  beast ;  but  suddenly  the  coyote  headed 
straight  off  for  a  low  manzanita  bush  that  stood  up 
amid  the  scraggly  sagebrush  back  from  the  shore. 

The  hunt  was  now  going  directly  from  us,  with  the 
dust  and  the  wolfhound  behind,  following  the  line  in 
front.  The  gap  between  the  greyhound  and  the  coy- 
ote seemed  to  have  closed,  and  when  the  hound  took 
the  low  manzanita  with  a  bound  that  was  half-somer- 
sault, Harris  exclaimed,  " He's  nailed  him ! "  and  we 
ran  ahead  to  see  the  wolfhound  complete  the  job. 

The  wolfhound,  however,  kept  right  on  across  the 
desert;  the  greyhound  lagged  uncertainly  far  behind; 
in  the  lead,  ahead  of  the  big  grizzled  wolfhound, 
bobbed  the  form  of  a  fleeing  jack-rabbit ! 

The  look  of  astonishment  and  then  of  disgust  on 
Harris's  face  was  amusing  to  see.  The  warden  may 
have  been  disappointed,  but  he  did  not  take  any 
pains  to  repress  a  chuckle. 

Harris  said  nothing.  He  was  searching  the  stunted 
sagebrush  off  to  the  left  of  us.  We  followed  his  eyes, 
and  he  and  the  warden,  both  experienced  plainsmen, 
picked  out  the  skulking,  shadowy  shape  of  the  coy- 
ote, as  the  creature,  with  belly  to  the  ground,  slunk 
off  out  of  sight. 

It  was  too  late  for  any  further  attempt  that  night. 

"An  old  stager,  sure,"  Harris  commented,  as  we 


THE   COYOTE   OF   PELICAN   POINT        33 

returned  to  camp.  "Knows  a  trick  or  two  for  every 
one  of  mine.  But  I  '11  fix  him." 

Nothing  was  seen  of  the  coyote  all  the  early  part 
of  the  next  day,  and  no  effort  was  made  to  find  him ; 
but  toward  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  Harris 
hitched  up  the  bronco,  and,  unpacking  a  flat  package 
in  the  bottom  of  the  buckboard,  showed  us  a  large 
glass  window,  which  he  fitted  as  a  door  into  one  end 
of  the  big  dry-goods  box.  Then  into  the  glass-ended 
box  he  put  the  two  hounds. 

"Now,  gentlemen,"  he  said,  "I'm  going  to  invite 
you  to  take  a  sight-seeing  trip  on  this  auto  out  into 
the  sagebrush.  Incidentally,  if  you  chance  to  see  a 
coyote,  don't  mention  it." 

If  all  the  coyotes,  jack-rabbits,  gophers,  and  peli- 
cans of  the  territory  had  come  out  to  see  us  thump 
and  bump  over  the  dry,  uneven  desert,  I  should  not 
have  been  surprised;  and  so,  on  coming  back  to  camp, 
it  was  with  no  wonder  at  all  that  I  discovered  the 
coyote,  out  on  the  point,  staring  at  us  from  across 
the  neck  of  the  peninsula.  Nothing  like  this  had 
happened  on  his  side  of  the  lake  before. 

Harris  saw  him  instantly,  and  was  quick  to  recog- 
nize our  advantage.  We  had  the  coyote  cornered  — 
out  on  the  long,  narrow  peninsula,  where  the  dogs 
must  run  him  down.  The  wily  creature  had  so  far 
forgotten  himself  as  to  get  caught  between  us  and 
the  ridge  alongshore,  and,  partly  in  curiosity,  had 
kept  running  ahead  and  stopping  to  look  at  us,  until 


34  SUMMER 

now  he  was  past  the  place  where  he  could  skulk 
back  without  our  seeing  him,  into  the  open  plain. 

Even  yet  all  depended  upon  our  getting  so  close 
to  him  that  the  dogs  could  keep  him  constantly  in 
sight.  The  crumbling  ledges  at  the  end  of  the  point 
were  full  of  holes  and  crevices  into  which  the  beast 
could  dodge. 

We  were  not  close  enough,  however.  With  one 
of  us  watching  the  coyote,  should  he  happen  to  run, 
Harris  turned  the  bronco  slowly  round  until  the 
glass  end  of  the  box  in  the  back  of  the  buckboard 
was  pointing  directly  at  the  creature.  There  was  a 
scramble  of  feet  inside  the  box.  The  dogs  had  sighted 
the  beast.  Then  Harris  started  as  if  to  drive  away, 
the  coyote  watching  us  all  the  time. 

Instead  of  driving  off,  he  made  a  circle,  and  com- 
ing back  slowly  toward  the  coyote,  gained  the  top 
of  a  little  knoll.  Had  the  coyote  seen  the  dogs  in 
the  box,  he  would  have  vanished  instantly;  but  the 
box  interested  and  puzzled  him. 

He  stood  looking  with  all  his  eyes  as  the  proces- 
sion turned,  and  once  more  the  glass  end  of  the  box 
was  pointed  directly  toward  him.  The  dogs  evidently 
knew  what  was  expected  of  them.  They  were  silent, 
but  ready.  Suddenly,  without  stopping  the  pony, 
Harris  pulled  open  the  glass  door,  and  yelled,  "  Go ! " 

And  go  they  did.  I  never  saw  hundred-yard  run- 
ners leap  from  the  mark  as  those  two  hounds  leaped 
from  that  box.  The  coyote,  in  his  astonishment,  act- 


THE   COYOTE   OF   PELICAN   POINT        35 

ually  turned  a  back  handspring  and  started  for  the 
point. 

The  dogs  were  hardly  two  hundred  yards  behind 
him,  and  were  making  short  work  of  the  space  be- 
tween. It  seemed  hardly  fair,  and  I  must  say  that  I 
felt  something  like  sympathy  for  the  under  dog,  wild 
dog  though  he  was;  the  odds  against  him  were  so 
great. 

But  the  coyote  knew  his  track  thoroughly,  and 
was  taking  advantage  of  the  rough,  loose,  shelving 
ground.  For  the  farther  out  toward  the  end  of  the 

o 

point  they  ran,  the  narrower,  rockier,  and  steeper 
grew  the  peninsula,  the  more  difficult  and  danger- 
ous the  footing. 

The  coyote  slanted  along  the  side  of  the  ridge, 
and  took  a  sloping  slab  of  rock  ahead  of  him  with  a 
slow  side-step  and  a  climb  that  brought  the  dogs  close 
up  behind  him.  They  took  the  rock  at  a  leap,  slid 
halfway  across,  and  scrambling,  rolled  several  yards 
down  the  slope  — and  lost  all  the  gain  they  had 
made. 

Things  began  to  even  up.  The  chase  began  to  be 
interesting.  Here  judgment  was  called  for,  as  well  as 
speed.  The  cliff  swallows  swarmed  out  of  their  nests 
under  the  overhanging  rocks;  the  black  cormorants 
and  great-winged  pelicans  saw  their  old  enemy  com- 
ing, and  rose,  flapping,  over  the  water;  the  circling 
gulls  dropped  low  between  the  runners;  their  strange 
clangor  and  the  stranger  tropical  shapes  thick  in 


36  SUMMER 

the  air  gave  the  scene  a  wildness  altogether  new 
to  me. 

On  fled  the  coyote;  on  bounded  the  dogs.  He 
would  never  escape  !  Nothing  without  wings  could 
ever  do  it!  Mere  feet  could  never  stand  such  a  test! 
The  chances  that  pursued  and  pursuers  took — the 
leaps  —  the  landings  !  The  whole  slope  seemed  roll- 
ing with  stones,  started  by  the  feet  of  the  runners. 

They  were  nearing  the  high,  rough  rocks  of  the 
tip  of  the  point.  Between  them  and  the  ledges  of  the 
point,  and  reaching  from  the  edge  of  the  water  nearly 
to  the  top  of  the  ridge,  lay  the  steep  golden  garden 
of  California  poppies,  blooming  in  the  dry  lava  soil 
that  had  crumbled  and  drifted  down  on  the  rocky 
side. 

The  coyote  veered,  and  dashed  down  toward  the 
middle  of  the  poppies ;  the  hounds  hit  the  bed  two 
jumps  behind.  There  was  a  cloud  of  dust,  and 
in  it  we  saw  an  avalanche  of  dogs  ploughing  a  wide 
furrow  through  the  flowers  nearly  down  to  the 
water.  Climbing  slowly  out  near  the  upper  edge  of 
the  bed  was  the  coyote,  again  with  a  good  margin  of 
lead. 

But  the  beast  was  at  the  end  of  the  point,  and 
nearing  the  end  of  his  race.  Had  we  been  out  of  the 
way,  he  might  have  turned  and  yet  given  the  dogs 
the  slip  —  for  behind  us  lay  the  open  desert^ 

Straight  toward  the  rocks  he  headed,  with  the 
hounds  laboring  up  the  slope  after  him.  He  was 


THE   COYOTE   OF   PELICAN  POINT        37 

running  to  the  very  edge  of  the  point,  as  if  he  were 
intending  to  leap  off  the  cliff  to  death  in  the  lake 
below,  and  I  saw  Harris's  face  tighten  as  his  hounds 
topped  the  ridge,  and  senselessly  tore  on  toward  the 
same  fearful  edge.  But  the  race  was  not  done  yet. 
The  coyote  hesitated,  turned  down  the  ledges  on  the 
south  slope,  and  leaping  in  among  the  cormorant  nests, 
started  back  toward  us. 

He  was  surer  on  his  feet  than  were  the  hounds, 
but  this  hesitation  on  the  point  had  cost  him  several 
yards.  The  hounds  would  pick  him  up  in  the  little 
cove  of  smooth,  hard  sand  that  lay,  encircled  by 
rough  rocks,  just  ahead,  unless —  no,  he  must  cross 
the  cove,  he  must  take  the  stretch.  He  was  taking  it 
—  knowingly,  too,  and  with  a  burst  of  power  that  he 
had  not  shown  upon  the  slopes.  He  was  flinging  away 
his  last  reserve. 

The  hounds  were  nearly  across ;  the  coyote  was 
within  fifty  feet  of  the  boulders,  when  the  grey- 
hound, lowering  his  long,  flat  head,  lunged  for  the 
spine  of  his  quarry. 

The  coyote  heard  him  coming,  spun  on  his  fore 
feet,  offering  his  fangs  to  those  of  his  foe,  and  threw 
himself  backward  just  as  the  jaws  of  the  wolfhound 
clashed  at  him  and  flecked  his  throat  with  foam. 

The  two  great  dogs  collided  and  bounded  wide 
apart,  startling  a  jack  rabbit  that  dived  between  them 
into  a  hole  among  the  rocks.  The  coyote,  on  his  feet 
in  an  instant,  caught  the  motion  of  the  rabbit,  and 


38  SUMMER 

like  his  shadow,  leaped  into  the  air  after  him  for  the 
hole. 

He  was  as  quick  as  thought,  quicker  than  either  of 
the  hounds.  He  sprang  high  over  them, — safely  over 
them,  we  thought,  —  when,  in  mid-air,  at  the  turn  of 
the  dive,  he  twisted,  heeled  half-over,  and  landed  hard 
against  the  side  of  the  hole ;  and  the  wolfhound 
pulled  him  down. 

It  was  over ;  but  there  was  something  strange,  al- 
most unfair,  it  seemed,  about  the  finish. 

Before  we  got  down  to  the  cove  both  of  the  dogs 
had  slunk  back,  cowering  from  the  dead  coyote. 
Then  there  came  to  us  the  buzz  of  a  rattlesnake  — 
a  huge,  angry  reptile  that  lay  coiled  in  the  mouth  of 
the  hole.  The  rabbit  had  struck  and  roused  the 
snake.  The  coyote  in  his  leap  had  caught  the  warn- 
ing whir,  but  caught  it  too  late  to  clear  both  snake 
and  hounds.  His  twist  in  the  air  to  clear  the  snake 
had  cost  him  his  life.  So  close  is  the  race  in  the  des- 
ert world. 


CHAPTER  V 

FROM    T    WHARF    TO    FRANKLIN    FIELD 

OVER  and  over  I  read  the  list  of  saints  and 
martyrs  on  the  wall  across  the  street,  think- 
ing dully  how  men  used  to  suffer  for  their 
religion,  and  how,  nowadays,  they  suffer  for  their 
teeth  For  I  was  reclining  in  a  dentist's  chair,  blink- 
ing through  the  window  at  the  Boston  Public  Li- 
brary, seeing  nothing,  however,  nothing  but  the 
tiles  on  the  roof,  and  the  names  of  Luther,  Wesley, 
Wycliffe,  graven  on  the  granite  wall,  while  the  den- 
tist burred  inside  of  my  cranium  and  bored  down  to 
my  toes  for  nerves.  So,  at  least,  it  seemed. 

By  and  by  my  gaze  wandered  blankly  off  to  the 
square  patch  of  sky  in  sight  above  the  roof.  A  black 
cloud  was  driving  past  in  the  wind  away  up  there. 
Suddenly  a  white  fleck  swept  into  the  cloud,  ca- 
reened, spread  two  wide  wings  against  it,  and 
rounded  a  circle.  Then  another  and  another,  until 
eight  herring  gulls  were  soaring  white  against  the 
sullen  cloud  in  that  little  square  of  sky  high  over 
the  roofs  of  Boston. 

Was  this  the  heart  of  a  vast  city  ?  Could  I  be  in 
a  dentist's  chair?  There  was  no  doubt  about  the 
chair;  but  how  quickly  the  red-green  roof  of  the  Li- 


40  SUMMER 

brary  became  the  top  of  some  great  cliff ;  the  dron- 
ing noise  of  traffic  in  the  streets,  the  wash  of  waves 
against  the  rocks;  and  yonder  on  the  storm-stained 
sky  those  wheeling  wings,  how  like  the  winds  of  the 
ocean,  and  the  raucous  voices,  how  they  seemed  to 
fill  all  the  city  with  the  sweep  and  the  sound  of  the 
sea! 

Boston,  Baltimore,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Chi- 
cago, San  Francisco  —  do  you  live  in  any  one  of 
them  or  in  any  other  city?  If  you  do,  then  you  have 
a  surprisingly  good  chance  to  watch  the  ways  of 
wild  things  and  even  to  come  near  to  the  heart  of 
Nature.  Not  so  good  a  chance,  to  be  sure,  as  in  the 
country;  but  the  city  is  by  no  means  so  lacking  in 
wild  life  or  so  shunned  by  the  face  of  Nature  as  we 
commonly  believe. 

All  great  cities  are  alike,  all  of  them  very  differ- 
ent, too,  in  details ;  Boston's  streets,  for  instance, 
being  crookeder  than  most,  but  like  them  all,  reach- 
ing out  for  many  a  mile  before  they  turn  into  coun- 
try roads  and  lanes  with  borders  of  quiet  and  wide 
green  fields. 

But  Boston  has  the  wide  waters  of  the  Harbor 
and  the  Charles  River  Basin.  And  it  also  has 
T  Wharf  !  They  did  not  throw  the  tea  overboard 
there,  back  in  Revolutionary  days,  as  you  may  be 
told,  but  T  Wharf  is  famous,  nevertheless,  famous 
for  fish  ! 

Fish?    Swordfish  and  red  snappers,  scup,  shad, 


FROM   T   WHARF   TO   FRANKLIN   FIELD    41 

squid,  squeteague,  sharks,  skates,  smelts,  sculpins, 
sturgeon,  scallops ;  halibut,  haddock,  hake  —  to  say 
nothing  of  mackerel,  cod,  and  countless  freak  things 
caught  by  trawl  and  seine  all  the  way  from  Boston 
Harbor  to  the  Grand  Banks !  I  have  many  a  time  sat 
on  T  Wharf  and  caught  short,  flat  flounders  with  my 
line.  It  is  almost  as  good  as  a  trip  to  the  Georges 
in  the  "  We  're  Here  "  to  visit  T  Wharf;  and  then 
to  walk  slowly  up  through  Quincy  Market.  Surely 
no  single  walk  in  the  woods  will  yield  a  tithe  of  the 
life  to  be  found  here,  and  found  only  here  for  us, 
brought  as  the  fish  and  game  and  fruits  have  been 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  the  depths  of  the  sea. 
There  is  no  reason  why  city  children  should  not 
know  a  great  deal  about  animal  life,  nor  why  the 
teachers  in  city  schools  should  feel  that  nature  study 
is  impossible  for  them.  For,  leaving  the  wharf  with 
its  fish  and  gulls  and  fleet  of  schooners,  you  come  up 
four  or  five  blocks  to  old  King's  Chapel  Burying- 
Ground  where  the  Boston  sparrows  roost.  Boston  is 
full  of  interesting  sights,  but  none  more  interesting 
to  the  bird-lover  than  this  sparrow-roost.  The  great 
bird  rocks  in  the  Pacific,  described  in  another  chap- 
ter of  this  book,  are  larger,  to  be  sure,  yet  hardly 
more  clamorous  when,  in  the  dusk,  the  sparrow  clans 
begin  to  gather ;  nor  hardly  wilder  than  this  city 
roost  when  the  night  lengthens,  and  the  quiet  creeps 
down  the  alleys  and  along  the  empty  streets,  and 
the  sea  winds  stop  on  the  corners,  and  the  lamps, 


42  SUMMER 

like  low-hung  stars,  light  up  the  sleeping  birds  till 
their  shadows  waver  large  upon  the  stark  walls  about 
the  old  graveyard  that  break  far  overhead  as  rim 
rock  breaks  on  the  desert  sky. 

Now  shift  the  scene  to  an  early  summer  morning 
on  Boston  Common,  two  blocks  farther  up,  and  on 
to  the  Public  Garden  across  Charles  Street.  There 
are  more  wild  birds  to  be  seen  in  the  Garden  on  a 
May  morning  than  there  are  here  in  the  woods  of 
Hingham,  and  the  summer  still  finds  some  of  them 
about  the  shrubs  and  pond.  And  it  is  an  easy  place 
in  which  to  watch  them.  One  of  our  bird-students 
has  found  over  a  hundred  species  in  the  Garden. 
Can  any  one  say  that  the  city  offers  a  poor  chance 
for  nature-study  ? 

This  is  the  story  of  every  great  city  park.  My 
friend  Professor  Herbert  E.  Walter  found  nearly 
one  hundred  and  fifty  species  of  birds  in  Lincoln 
Park,  Chicago.  And  have  you  ever  read  Mr.  Brad- 
ford Torrey's  delightful  essay  called  "  Birds  on  Bos- 
ton Common  "  ? 

Then  there  are  the  squirrels  and  the  trees  on  the 
Common  ;  the  flowers,  bees,  butterflies,  and  even  the 
schools  of  goldfish,  in  the  pond  of  the  Garden  — 
enough  of  life,  insect-life,  plant-life,  bird-life,  fish- 
life,  for  more  than  a  summer  of  lessons. 

Nor  is  this  all.  One  block  beyond  the  Garden 
stands  the  Natural  History  Museum,  crowded  with 
mounted  specimens  of  birds  and  beasts,  reptiles, 


FROM   T   WHARF   TO   FRANKLIN   FIELD    43 

fishes,  and  shells  beyond  number, — more  than  you  can 
study,  perhaps.  You  city  folk,  instead  of  having  too 
little,  have  altogether  too  much  of  too  many  things. 
But  such  a  museum  is  always  a  suggestive  place  for 
one  who  loves  the  out-of-doors.  And  the  more  one 
knows  of  nature,  the  more  one  gets  out  of  the  mu- 
seum. You  can  carry  there,  and  often  answer,  the 
questions  that  come  to  you  in  your  tramps  afield,  in 
your  visits  to  the  Garden,  and  in  your  reading  of 
books.  Then  add  to  this  the  great  Agassiz  Museum 
at  Harvard  University,  and  the  Aquarium  at  South 
Boston,  and  the  Zoological  Gardens  at  Franklin 
Park,  and  the  Arnold  Arboretum  —  all  of  these  with 
their  multitude  of  mounted  specimens  and  their  liv- 
ing forms  for  you !  For  me  also ;  and  in  from  the 
country  I  come,  very  often,  to  study  natural  history 
in  the  city. 

What  is  true  of  Boston  is  true  of  every  city  in 
some  degree.  The  sun  and  the  moon  and  stars  shine 
upon  the  city  as  upon  the  country,  and  during  my 
years  of  city  life  (I  lived  in  the  very  heart  of  Boston) 
it  was  my  habit  to  climb  to  my  roof,  above  the  din 
and  glare  of  the  crowded  street,  and  here  among  the 
chimney-pots  to  lie  down  upon  my  back,  the  city  far 
below  me,  and  overhead  the  blue  sky,  the  Milky  Way, 
the  constellations,  or  the  moon,  swinging  — 

"Through  the  heaven's  wide  pathless  way, 
And  oft,  as  if  her  head  she  bowed 
Stooping  through  a  fleecy  cloud." 


44 


SUMMER 


Here,  too,  I  have  watched  the  gulls  that  sail  over  the 
Harbor,  especially  in  the  winter.  From  this  outlook 
I  have  seen  the  winging  geese  pass  over,  and  heard 
the  faint  calls  of  other  migrating  flocks,  voices  that 

were    all    the    more 
mysterious  for  their 
falling  through  the 
muffling    hum    that 
%|  rises  from  the  streets 
and  spreads  over 
the  wide  roof  of 
the   city  as    a   soft 
night  wind    over    the 
peaked  roofs  of  a  for- 
est of  firs. 

Strangely  enough 
here  on  the  roof  I  have 
watched  the  only  nighthawks 
that  I  have  ever  found  in  Mas- 
sachusetts. This  is  surely  the 
last  place  you  would  expect  to 
find  such  wild,  spooky,  dusk- 
loving  creatures  as  nighthawks. 
Yet  here,  on  the  tarred  and 
pebbled  roofs,  here  among  the 
whirling,  squeaking,  smoking 

chimney-pots,  here  above  the  crowded,  noisy  streets, 
these  birds  built  their  nests, — laid  their  eggs,  rather, 
for  they  build  no  nests, —  reared  their  young,  and  in 


ARGIOPE,  THE  MEADOW 
SPIDER 


FROM   T   WHARF   TO   FRANKLIN   FIELD    45 

the  long  summer  twilight  rose  and  fell  through  the 
smoky  air,  uttering  their  peevish  cries  and  making 
their  ghostly  booming  sounds  with  their  high-diving, 
just  as  if  they  were  out  over  the  darkening  swales 
along  some  gloomy  swamp-edge. 

For  many  weeks  I  had  a  big  tame  spider  in  the 
corner  of  my  study  there  in  that  city  flat,  and  I  have 
yet  to  read  an  account  of  all  the  species  of  spiders 
to  be  found  dwelling  within  the  walls  of  any  great 
city.  Even  Argiope  of  the  meadows  is  doubtless 
found  in  the  Fens.  Not  far  away  from  my  flat,  down 
near  the  North  Station,  one  of  my  friends  on  the 
roof  of  his  flat  kept  several  hives  of  bees.  They  fed 
on  the  flowers  of  the  Garden,  on  those  in  dooryards, 
and  on  the  honey-yielding  lindens  which  stand  here 
and  there  throughout  the  city.  Pigeons  and  sparrows 
built  their  nests  within  sight  of  my  windows ;  and  by 
going  early  to  the  roof  I  could  see  the  sun  rise,  and 
in  the  evening  I  could  watch  it  go  down  behind  the 
hills  of  Belmont  as  now  I  watch  it  from  my  lookout 
here  on  Mullein  Hill. 

One  is  never  far  from  the  sky,  nor  from  the  earth, 
nor  from  the  free,  wild  winds,  nor  from  the  wilder 
night  that  covers  city  and  sea  and  forest  with  its 
quiet,  and  fills  them  all  with  lurking  shadows  that 
never  shall  be  tamed. 


CHAPTER   VI 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS    TO    HEAR    THIS    SUMMER 


THE  fullness,  the  flood,  of  life  has  come,  and, 
contrary  to  one's  expectations,  a  marked  si- 
lence has  settled  down  over  the  waving  fields 
and  the  cool  deep  woods.  I  am  writing  these  lines  in 
the  lamplight,  with  all  the  windows  and  doors  open 
to  the  dark  July  night.  The  summer  winds  are  mov- 
ing in  the  trees.  A  cricket  and  a  few  small  green 
grasshoppers  are  chirping  in  the  grass ;  but  nothing 
louder  is  near  at  hand.  Arid  nothing  louder  is  far  off, 
except  the  cry  of  the  whip-poor-will  in  the  wood  road. 
But  him  you  hear  in  the  spring  and  autumn  as  well 
as  in  the  summer.  Ah,  listen !  My  tree-toad  in  the 
grapevine  over  the  bulkhead  door! 

This  is  a  voice  you  must  hear  —  on  cloudy  sum- 
mer days,  toward  twilight,  and  well  into  the  evening. 
Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  feel  lonely?  If  you  do,  I 
think,  then,  that  you  know  how  the  soft,  far-off,  eerie 
cry  of  the  tree-toad  sounds.  He  is  prophesying  rain, 
the  almanac  people  think,  but  I  think  it  is  only  the 
sound  of  rain  in  his  voice,  summer  rain  after  a  long 
drouth,  cooling,  reviving,  soothing  rain,  with  just  a 


THINGS   TO   HEAR   THIS   SUMMER        47 

patter  of  something  in  it  that  I  cannot  describe, 
something  that  I  used  to  hear  on  the  shingles  of  the 
garret  over  the  rafters  where  the  bunches  of  hore- 
hound  and  catnip  and  pennyroyal  hung. 

II 

You  ought  to  hear  the  lively  clatter  of  a  mowing- 
machine.  It  is  hot  out  of  doors  ;  the  roads  are  begin- 
ning to  look  dusty;  the  insects  are  tuning  up  in 
the  grass,  and,  like  their  chorus  all  together,  and 
marching  round  and  round  the  meadow,  moves  the 
mower's  whirring  blade.  I  love  the  sound.  Hay- 
ing is  hard,  sweet  work.  The  farmer  who  does  not 
love  his  haying  ought  to  be  made  to  keep  a  country 
store  and  sell  kerosene  oil  and  lumps  of  dead  salt 
pork  out  of  a  barrel.  He  could  not  appreciate  a  live, 
friendly  pig. 

Down  the  long  swath  sing  the  knives,  the  cogs 
click  above  the  square  corners,  and  the  big,  loud 
thing  sings  on  again, —  the  song  of  "  first-fruits," 
the  first  great  ingathering  of  the  season, — a  song 
to  touch  the  heart  with  joy  and  sweet  solemnity. 

Ill 

You  ought  to  hear  the  Katydids  —  two  of  them 
on  the  trees  outside  your  window.  They  are  not 
saying  "  Katy  did,"  nor  singing  "  Katy  did  ";  they 
are  fiddling  "  Katy  did,"  "  Katy  did  n't "  —  by  rasp- 
ing the  fore  wings. 


48 


SUMMER 


Is  the  sound  "Katy  "  or  «  Katy  did"?  or  what 
is  said  ?  Count  the  notes.  Are  they  at  the  rate  of 
two  hundred  per  minute?  Watch  the  instrumen- 
talist—  till  you  make  sure  it  is  the  male  who  is 
wooing  Katy  with  his  persistent  guitar.  The  male 

has  no  long  ovipositors. 


IV 

Another  instrument- 
alist to  hear  is  the  big 
cicada  or  "harvest-fly." 
There  is  no  more 
characteristic 
sound  of  all  the 
summer  than  his 
big,  quick,  start- 
ling whirr  —  a 
minute  mowing- 
machine  up  on  the 
limb  overhead  ! 
Not  so  minute 
either,  for  the  crea- 
ture is  fully  two 
inches  long,  with 
bulging  eyes  and  a 
click  to  his  wings 

he  flies  that  can   be   heard  a  hundred  feet 
"  Dog-days-z-z-z-z-z-z-z  "  is  the  song  he  sings 


when 
away 


to  me. 


'FLITTING  AND  WAVEKING  ABOUT' 


THINGS   TO  HEAR   THIS   SUMMER        51 


This  is  the  season  of  small  sounds.  As  a  test  of 
the  keenness  of  your  ears  go  out  at  night  into 
some  open  glade  in  the  woods  or  by  the  side  of  some 
pond  and  listen  for  the  squeaking  of  the  bats  flit- 
ting and  wavering  above  in  the  uncertain  light  over 
your  head.  You  will  need  a  stirless  midsummer 
dusk ;  and  if  you  can  hear  the  thin,  fine  squeak  as  the 
creature  dives  near  your  head,  you  may  be  sure  your 
ears  are  almost  as  keen  as  those  of  the  fox.  The  sound 
is  not  audible  to  most  human  ears, 

VI 

Another  set  of  small  sounds  characteristic  of  mid- 
summer is  the  twittering  of  the  flocking  swallows  in 
the  cornfields  and  upon  the  telegraph-wires.  This 
summer  I  have  had  long  lines  of  the  young  birds 
and  their  parents  from  the  old  barn  below  the  hill 
strung  on  the  wires  from  the  house  across  the  lawn. 
Here  they  preen  while  some  of  the  old  birds  hawk  for 
flies,  the  whole  line  of  them  breaking  into  a  soft  little 
twitter  each  time  a  newcomer  alights  among  them. 
One  swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,  but  your 
electric  light  wires  sagging  with  them  is  the  very 
soul  of  the  summer. 

VII 

In  the  deep,  still  woods  you  will  hear  the  soft  call 
of  the  robin  —  a  low,  pensive,  plaintive  note  unlike 


52 


SUMMER 


its  spring  cry  or  the  after-shower  song.    It  is  as  if 
the  voice  of  the  slumberous  woods  were  speaking,  — 

without  alarm,   reproach, 
or  welcome  either.    It  is 
an    invitation    to    stretch 
yourself  on  the  deep  moss 
and  let  the  warm  shadows 
of  the  summer 
woods   steal 
over    you 
with  sleep. 


And    this, 
too,  is  a  thing 
to  learn.    Do- 
ing    som  e- 
thing,  hear- 
ing something,  seeing 
something  by  no  means 
exhausts    our    whole 
business    with    the    out-of- 
doors.    To  lie  down  and  do 
nothing,  to  be  able  to  keep 
silence  and  to  rest  on   the 
great  whirling  globe  is  as  needful  as  to  know  every- 
thing going  on  about  us. 


THE  RED-EYED  VIREO 


THINGS   TO  HEAR  THIS   SUMMER        53 

VIII 

There  is  one  bird-song  so  characteristic  of  mid- 
summer that  I  think  every  lover  of  the  woods  must 
know  it :  the  oft-repeated,  the  constant  notes  of 
the  red-eyed  vireo  or  "preacher."  Wilson  Flagg 
says  of  him  :  "  He  takes  the  part  of  a  deliberative 
orator  who  explains  his  subject  in  a  few  words  and 
then  makes  a  pause  for  his  hearers  to  reflect  upon 
it.  We  might  suppose  him  to  be  repeating  moder- 
ately with  a  pause  between  each  sentence,  (  You 
see  it  —  you  know  it  —  do  you  hear  me  ?  —  do  you 
believe  it  ? '  All  these  strains  are  delivered  with  a 
rising  inflection  at  the  close,  and  with  a  pause,  as  if 
waiting  for  an  answer." 

IX 

A  few  other  bird-notes  that  are  associated  with 
hot  days  and  stirless  woods,  and  that  will  be  worth 
your  hearing  are  the  tree-top  song  of  the  scarlet 
tanager.  He  is  one  of  the  summer  sights,  a  dash  of 
the  burning  tropics  is  his  brilliant  scarlet  and  jet 
black,  and  his  song  is  a  loud,  hoarse,  rhythmical 
carol  that  has  the  flame  of  his  feathers  in  it  and  the 
blaze  of  the  sun.  You  will  know  it  from  the  cool, 
liquid  song  of  the  robin  both  by  its  peculiar  quality 
and  because  it  is  a  short  song,  and  soon  ended,  not 
of  indefinite  length  like  the  robin's. 

Then    the   peculiar,    coppery,    reverberating,    or 


54  SUMMER 

confined  song  of  the  indigo  bunting  —  as  if  the  bird 
were  singing  inside  some  great  kettle. 

One  more  —  among  a  few  others  —  the  softly  fall- 
ing, round,  small,  upward-swinging  call  of  the  wood 
pewee.  Is  it  sad  ?  Yes,  sad.  But  sweeter  than  sad,  — 
restful,  cooling,  and  inexpressibly  gentle.  All  day 
long  from  high  above  your  head  and  usually  quite 
out  of  view,  the  voice  —  it  seems  hardly  a  voice 
—  breaks  the  long  silence  of  the  summer  woods. 


When  night  comes  down  with  the  long  twilight 
there  sounds  a  strange,  almost  awesome  quawk  in  the 
dusk  over  the  fields.  It  sends  a  thrill  through  me, 
notwithstanding  its  nightly  occurrence  all  through 
July  and  August.  It  is  the  passing  of  a  pair  of 
night  herons  —  the  black-crowned,  I  am  sure,  al- 
though this  single  pair  only  fly  over.  Where  the 
birds  are  numerous  they  nest  in  great  colonies. 

It  is  the  wild,  eerie  quawk  that  you  should  hear, 
a  far-off,  mysterious,  almost  uncanny  sound  that  fills 
the  twilight  with  a  vague,  untamed  something,  no 
matter  how  bright  and  civilized  the  day  may  have 
been. 

XI 

From  the  harvest  fields  comes  the  sweet  whistle  of 
Bob  White,  the  clear,  round  notes  rolling  far  through 
the  hushed  summer  noon;  in  the  wood-lot  the 


THINGS   TO  HEAR  THIS   SUMMER        55 

crows  and  jays  have  already  begun  their  cawings 
and  screamings  that  later  on  become  the  dominant 
notes  of  the  golden  autumn.  They  are  not  so  loud 
and  characteristic  now  because  of  the  insect  orchestra 
throbbing  with  a  rhythmic  beat  through  the  air.  So 
wide,  constant,  and  long-continued  is  this  throbbing 
note  of  the  insects  that  by  midsummer  you  almost 
cease  to  notice  it.  But  stop  and  listen — field  crick- 
ets, katydids,  long-horned  grasshoppers,  snowy  tree- 
crickets  :  chwl-chici-chwi-chwi  —  thrr-r-r-r-r-r-r — 
crrri-crrri-crrri'Crrri — gru-gru-gru-gru  —  retreat- 
retreat -retreat -treat -treat —  like  the  throbbing  of 
the  pulse. 

XII 

One  can  do  no  more  than  suggest  in  a  short  chap- 
ter like  this ;  and  all  that  I  am  doing  here  is  catch- 
ing for  you  some  of  the  still,  small  voices  of  my 
summer.  How  unlike  those  of  your  summer  they 
may  be  I  can  easily  imagine,  for  you  are  in  the 
Pacific  Coast,  or  off  on  the  vast  prairies  of  Canada, 
or  down  in  the  sunny  fields  and  hill-country  of  the 
South. 

I  have  done  enough  if  I  have  suggested  that  you 
stop  and  listen ;  for  after  all  it  is  having  ears  which 
hear  not  that  causes  the  trouble.  Hear  the  voices 
that  make  your  summer  vocal  —  the  loud  and  still 
voices  which  alike  pass  unheeded  unless  we  pause  to 
hear. 


56  SUMMER 

As  a  lesson  in  listening,  go  out  some  quiet  evening, 
and  as  the  shadows  slip  softly  over  the  surface  of 
the  wood-walled  pond,  listen  to  the  breathing  of 
the  fish  as  they  come  to  the  top,  and  the  splash 
of  the  muskrats,  or  the  swirl  of  the  pickerel  as  he 
ploughs  a  furrow  through  the  silence. 


CHAPTEK  VH 
THE  SEA-BIRDS'  HOME 

AFTER  my  wandering  for  years  among  the 
quiet  lanes  and  along  the  winding  cow-paths 
of  the  home  fields,  my  trip  to  the  wild-bird 
rocks  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  as  you  can  imagine,  was 
a  thrilling  experience.  We  chartered  a  little  launch 
at  Tillamook,  and,  after  a  fight  of  hours  and  hours 
to  cross  Tillamook  Bar  at  the  mouth  of  the  bay,  we 
got  out  upon  the  wide  Pacific,  and  steamed  down 
the  coast  for  Three- Arch  Rocks,  which  soon  began  to 
show  far  ahead  of  us  just  off  the  rocky  shore. 

I  had  never  been  on  the  Pacific  before,  nor  had 
I  ever  before  seen  the  birds  that  were  even  now  be- 
ginning to  dot  the  sea  and  to  sail  over  and  about  us 
as  we  steamed  along.  It  was  all  new,  so  new  that  the 
very  water  of  the  Pacific  looked  unlike  the  familiar 
water  of  the  Atlantic.  And  surely  the  waves  were 
different, —  longer,  grayer,  smoother,  with  an  im- 
mensely mightier  heave.  At  least  they  seemed  so, 
for  every  time  we  rose  on  the  swell,  it  was  as  if  our 
boat  were  in  the  hand  of  Old  Ocean,  and  his  mighty 
arm  were  "putting"  us,  as  the  athlete  "puts"  the 
shot.  It  was  all  new  and  strange  and  very  wild  to 
me,  with  the  wild  cries  of  the  sea-birds  already 


58  SUMMER 

beginning  to  reach  us  as  flocks  of  the  birds  passed 
around  and  over  our  heads. 

The  fog  was  lifting.  The  thick,  wet  drift  that  had 
threatened  our  little  launch  on  Tillamook  Bar  stood 
clear  of  the  shouldering  sea  to  the  westward,  and  in 
over  the  shore,  like  an  upper  sea,  hung  at  the  fir-girt 
middles  of  the  mountains,  as  level  and  as  gray  as 
theseabelow.  There  was  no  breeze.  The  long,  smooth 
swell  of  the  Pacific  swung  under  us  and  in,  until  it 
whitened  at  the  base  of  the  three  rocks  that  rose  out 
of  the  sea  in  our  course,  and  that  now  began  to 
take  on  form  in  the  foggy  distance.  Gulls  were  fly- 
ing over  us,  lines  of  black  cormorants  and  crowds 
of  murres  were  winging  past,  but  we  were  still  too 
far  away  from  the  looming  rocks  to  see  that  the  gray 
of  their  walls  was  the  gray  of  uncounted  colonies  of 
nesting  birds,  colonies  that  covered  their  craggy  steeps 
as,  on  shore,  the  green  firs  clothed  the  slopes  of  the 
Coast  Range  Mountains  up  to  the  hanging  fog. 

As  we  ran  on  nearer,  the  sound  of  the  surf  about 
the  rocks  became  audible,  the  birds  in  the  air  grew 
more  numerous,  their  cries  now  faintly  mingling  with 
the  sound  of  the  sea.  A  hole  in  the  side  of  the  middle 
Rock,  a  mere  fleck  of  foam  it  seemed  at  first,  widened 
rapidly  into  an  -arching  tunnel  through  which  our 
boat  might  run ;  the  swell  of  the  sea  began  to  break 
over  half -sunken  ledges;  and  soon  upon  us  fell  the 
damp  shadows  of  the  three  great  rocks,  for  now 
we  were  looking  far  up  at  their  sides,  where  we  could 


THE   SEA-BIRDS'  HOME 


59 


see  the  birds  in  their  guano-gray  rookeries,  rookery 

over  rookery, — gulls,  cormorants,  guillemots,  puffins, 

murres,  —  encrusting  the  sides 

from  tide-line  to  pinnacles,  as  the 

crowding    barnacles    encrusted  ?        HH»\ 

the    bases    from    the    tide-line  ^S-^ 

down. 

We  had  not  approached  with- 
out protest,  for  the  birds  were 
coming  off  to  meet  us,  wheel- 
ing and  clacking  overhead,  the 
nearer  we  drew,  in  a  constantly 
thickening  cloud  of  lowering 
wings  and  tongues.  The  clamor 
was  indescribable,  the  tossing 
flight  enough  to  make  one  mad 
with  the  motion  of  wings.  The  air  was  filled,  thick, 
with  the  whirling  and  the  screaming,  the  clacking, 
the  honking,  close  to  our  ears,  and  high  up  in  the 
peaks,  and  far  out  over  the  waves.  Never  had  I  been 
in  this  world  before.  Was  I  on  my  earth?  or  had  I 
suddenly  wakened  up  in  some  old  sea  world  where 
there  was  no  dry  land,  no  life  but  this? 

We  rounded  the  outer  or  Shag  Rock  and  headed 
slowly  in  opposite  the  yawning  hole  of  the  middle 
Rock  as  into  some  mighty  cave,  so  sheer  and  shadowy 
rose  the  walls  above  us,  —  so  like  to  cavern  thunder 
was  the  throbbing  of  the  surf  through  the  hollow 
arches,  was  the  flapping  and  screaming  of  the  birds 


TUFTED   PUFFINS 


60  SUMMER 

against  the  high  circling  walls,  was  the  deep,  men- 
acing grumble  of  the  bellowing  sea-lions,  as,  through 
the  muffle  of  surf  and  sea-fowl,  herd  after  herd  lum- 
bered headlong  into  the  foam. 

It  was  a  strange,  wild  scene.  Hardly  a  mile  from 
the  Oregon  coast,  but  cut  off  by  breaker  and  bar 
from  the  abrupt,  uninhabited  shore,  the  three  rocks 
of  the  Reservation,  each  pierced  with  its  resounding 
arch,  heaved  their  huge  shoulders  from  the  waves 
straight  up,  high,  towering,  till  our  little  steamer 
coasted  their  dripping  sides  like  some  puffing  pygmy. 

Each  rock  was  perhaps  as  large  as  a  solid  city 
square  and  as  high  as  the  tallest  of  sky-scrapers ; 
immense,  monstrous  piles,  each  of  them,  and  run 
through  by  these  great  caverns  or  arches,  dim,  drip- 
ping, filled  with  the  noise  of  the  waves  and  the  beat 
of  thousands  of  wings. 

They  were  of  no  part  or  lot  with  the  dry  land.  Their 
wave-scooped  basins  were  set  with  purple  starfish  and 
filled  with  green  and  pink  anemones,  and  beaded 
many  deep  with  mussels  of  amethyst  and  jet  that 
glittered  in  the  clear  beryl  waters ;  and,  above  the 
jeweled  basins,  like  fabled  beasts  of  old,  lay  the  sea- 
lions,  uncouth  forms,  flippered,  reversed  in  shape, 
with  throats  like  the  caves  of  ^Eolus,  hollow,  hoarse, 
discordant;  and  higher  up,  on  every  jutting  bench 
and  shelf,  in  every  weathered  rift,  over  every  jog  of 
the  ragged  cliffs,  to  their  bladed  backs  and  pointed 
peaks,  swarmed  the  sea-birds,  webf ooted,  amphibious. 


THE   SEA-BIRDS'   HOME  61 

shaped  of  the  waves,  with  stormy  voices  given  them 
by  the  winds  that  sweep  in  from  the  sea. 

As  I  looked  up  at  the  amazing  scene,  at  the  mighty 
rocks  and  the  multitude  of  winging  forms,  I  seemed 
to  see  three  swirling  piles  of  life,  three  cones  that 
rose  like  volcanoes  from  the  ocean,  their  sides  cov- 
ered with  living  lava,  their  craters  clouded  with  the 
smoke  of  wings,  while  their  bases  seemed  belted  by 
the  rumble  of  a  multi-throated  thunder.  The  very  air 
was  dank  with  the  smell  of  strange,  strong  volcanic 
gases,  —  no  breath  of  the  land,  no  odor  of  herb,  no  scent 
of  fresh  soil ;  but  the  raw,  rank  smells  of  rookery  and 
den,  saline,  kelpy,  fetid;  the  stench  of  fish  and 
bedded  guano,  and  of  the  reeking  pools  where  the 
sea-lion  herds  lay  sleeping  on  the  lower  rocks  in 
the  sun. 

A  boat's  keel  was  beneath  me,  but  as  I  stood  out 
on  the  pointed  prow,  barely  above  the  water,  and 
found  myself  thrust  forward  without  will  or  effort 
among  the  crags  and  caverns,  among  the  shadowy 
walls,  the  damps,  the  smells,  the  sounds,  among  the 
bellowing  beasts  in  the  churning  waters  about  me, 
and  into  the  storm  of  wings  and  tongues  in  the  whirl- 
ing air  above  me,  I  passed  from  the  things  I  had 
known,  and  the  time  and  the  earth  of  man,  into  a 
monstrous  period  of  the  past. 

This  was  the  home  of  the  sea-birds.  Amid  all  the 
din  we  landed  from  a  yawl  and  began  our  climb 
toward  the  top  of  Shag  Rock,  the  outermost  of  the 


62  SUMMER 

three.  And  here  we  had  another  and  a  different  sight 
of  the  wild  life.  It  covered  every  crag.  I  clutched  it 
in  my  hands ;  I  crushed  it  under  my  feet ;  it  was  thick 
in  the  air  about  me.  My  narrow  path  up  the  face  of 
the  rock  was  a  succession  of  sea-bird  rookeries,  of 
crowded  eggs,  and  huddled  young,  hairy  or  naked  or 
wet  from  the  shell.  Every  time  my  fingers  felt  for  a 
crack  overhead  they  touched  something  warm  that 
rolled  or  squirmed;  every  time  my  feet  moved  under 
me,  for  a  hold,  they  pushed  in  among  top-shaped  eggs 
that  turned  on  the  shelf  or  went  over  far  below ;  and 
whenever  I  hugged  the  pushing  wall  I  must  bear  off 
from  a  mass  of  squealing,  struggling,  shapeless 
things,  just  hatched.  And  down  upon  me,  as  rook- 
ery after  rookery  of  old  birds  whirred  in  fright  from 
their  ledges,  fell  crashing  eggs  and  unfledged  young, 
that  the  greedy  gulls  devoured  ere  they  touched  the 
sea. 

I  was  midway  in  the  climb,  at  a  bad  turn  round  a 
point,  edging  inch  by  inch  along,  my  face  pressed 
against  the  hard  face  of  the  rock,  my  feet  and  fingers 
gripping  any  crack  or  seam  they  could  feel,  when 
out  of  the  deep  space  behind  me  I  caught  the  swash 
of  waves.  Instantly  a  cold  hand  seemed  to  clasp  me 
from  behind. 

I  flattened  against  the  rock,  my  whole  body,  my 
very  mind  clinging  desperately  for  a  hold,  —  a  fall- 
ing fragment  of  shale,  a  gust  of  wind,  the  wing-stroke 
of  a  frightened  bird,  enough  to  break  the  hold  and 


THE   SEA-BIRDS'   HOME  63 

swing  me  out  over  the  water,  washing  faint  and  far 
below.   A  long  breath,  and  I  was  climbing  again. 

We    were    on    the    outer 
Rock,  our  only  possible  as- 
cent taking  us  up  the  sheer  south 
face.   With  the  exception  of  an 
occasional  Western  gull's  and 
pigeon   guillemot's  nest,   these 
steep   sides   were   occupied  en- 
tirely    by     the     California 
murres,  —  penguin  -  shaped 
birds  about  the 
size  of  a  small 
wild  duck,  choc- 
olate-brown 
above,     with 
white    breasts, 

BRANDT'S  CORMORANT 

— which  liter- 
ally covered  the  sides  of  the  three  great  rocks  wher- 
ever they  could  find  a  hold.  If  a  million  meant  any- 
thing, I  should  say  there  were  a  million  murres  nest- 
ing on  this  outer  Rock  ;  not  nesting  either,  for  the  egg 
is  laid  upon  the  bare  ledge,  as  you  might  place  it  upon 
a  mantel,  —  a  single  sharp-pointed  egg,  as  large  as  a 
turkey's,  and  just  as  many  of  them  on  the  ledge  as 
there  is  standing-room  for  the  birds.  The  murre  broods 
her  very  large  egg  by  standing  straight  up  over  it,  her 
short  legs,  by  dint  of  stretching,  allowing  her  to  strad- 
dle it,  her  short  tail  propping  her  securely  from  behind. 


64  SUMMER 

On,  up  along  the  narrow  back,  or  blade,  of  the 
rock,  and  over  the  peak,  were  the  well-spaced  nests 
of  the  Brandt's  cormorants,  nests  the  size  of  an  ordi- 
nary straw  hat,  made  of  sea-grass  and  the  yellow- 
flowered  sulphur-weed  that  grew  in  a  dense  mat  over 
the  north  slope  of  the  top,  each  nest  holding  four 
long,  dirty  blue  eggs  or  as  many  black,  shivering 
young ;  and  in  the  low  sulphur-weed,  all  along  the 
roof-like  slope  of  the  top,  built  the  gulls  and  the 
tufted  puffins ;  and,  with  the  burrowing  puffins,  often 
in  the  same  holes,  were  found  the  Kaeding's  petrels; 
while  down  below  them,  as  up  above  them,  —  all 
around  the  rock-rim  that  dropped  sheer  to  the  sea, 
—  stood  the  cormorants,  black,  silent,  statuesque ; 
and  everywhere  were  nests  and  eggs  and  young,  and 
everywhere  were  flying,  crying  birds  —  above,  about, 
and  far  below  me,  a  whirling,  whirring  vortex  of 
wings  that  had  caught  me  in  its  funnel. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE    MOTHER    MURRE 

I  HEAR  the  bawling  of  my  neighbor's  cow.  Her 
calf  was  carried  off  yesterday,  and  since  then, 
during  the  long  night,  and  all  day  long,  her  in- 
sistent woe  has  made  our  hillside  melancholy.  But  I 
shall  not  hear  her  to-night,  not  from  this  distance. 
She  will  lie  down  to-night  with  the  others  of  the 
herd,  and  munch  her  cud.  Yet,  when  the  rattling 
stanchions  grow  quiet  and  sleep  steals  along  the 
stalls,  she  will  turn  her  ears  at  every  small  stirring; 
she  will  raise  her  head  to  listen  and  utter  a  low,  ten- 
der moo.  Her  full  udder  hurts  ;  but  her  cud  is  sweet. 
She  is  only  a  cow. 

Had  she  been  a  wild  cow,  or  had  she  been  out  with 
her  calf  in  a  wild  pasture,  the  mother-love  in  her 
would  have  lived  for  six  months.  Here  in  the  barn 
she  will  be  forced  to  forget  her  calf  in  a  few  hours, 
and  by  morning  her  mother-love  shall  utterly  have 
died. 

There  is  a  mother-principle  alive  in  all  nature  that 
never  dies.  This  is  different  from  mother-love.  The 
oak  tree  responds  to  the  mother-principle,  and  bears 
acorns.  It  is  a  law  of  life.  The  mother-love  or  pas- 
sion, on  the  other  hand,  occurs  only  among  the  higher 


66  SUMMER 

animals.  It  is  very  common ;  and  yet,  while  it  is  one 
of  the  strongest,  most  interesting,  most  beautiful  of 
animal  traits,  it  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  individ- 
ual and  variable  of  all  animal  traits. 

This  particular  cow  of  my  neighbor's  that  I  hear 
lowing,  is  an  entirely  gentle  creature  ordinarily,  but 
with  a  calf  at  her  side  she  will  pitch  at  any  one  who 
approaches  her.  And  there  is  no  other  cow  in  the 
herd  that  mourns  so  long  after  her  calf.  The  mother 
in  her  is  stronger,  more  enduring,  than  in  any  of  the 
other  nineteen  cows  in  the  barn.  My  own  cow  hardly 
mourns  at  all  when  her  calf  is  taken  away.  She  might 
be  an  oak  tree  losing  its  acorns,  or  a  crab  losing  her 
hatching  eggs,  so  far  as  any  show  of  love  is  con- 
cerned. 

The  female  crab  attaches  her  eggs  to  her  swim- 
merets  and  carries  them  about  with  her  for  their  pro- 
tection as  the  most  devoted  of  mothers ;  yet  she  is  no 
more  conscious  of  them,  and  feels  no  more  for  them, 
than  the  frond  of  a  cinnamon  fern  feels  for  its  spores. 
She  is  a  mother,  without  the  love  of  the  mother. 

In  the  spider,  however,  just  one  step  up  the  ani- 
mal scale  from  the  crab,  you  find  the  mother-love  or 
passion.  Crossing  a  field  the  other  day,  I  came  upon 
a  large  female  spider  of  the  hunter  family,  carrying 
a  round  white  sack  of  eggs,  half  the  size  of  a  cherry, 
attached  to  her  spinnerets.  Plucking  a  long  stem  of 
grass,  I  detached  the  sack  of  eggs  without  bursting 
it.  Instantly  the  mother  turned  and  sprang  at  the 


THE   MOTHER   MURRE  67 

grass-stem,  fighting  and  biting  until  she  got  to  the 
sack,  which  she  seized  in  her  strong  jaws  and  made  off 
with  as  fast  as  her  long,  rapid  legs  would  carry  her. 


I  laid  the  stem  across  her  back  and  again  took 
the  sack  away.  She  came  on  for  it,  fighting  more 
fiercely  than  before.  Once  more  she  seized  it ;  once 
more  I  forced  it  from  her  jaws,  while  she  sprang  at 
the  grass-stem  and  tried  to  tear  it  to  pieces.  She 
must  have  been  fighting  for  two  minutes  when,  by 
a  regrettable  move  on  my  part,  one  of  her  legs  was 
injured.  She  did  not  falter  in  her  fight.  On  she 
rushed  for  the  sack  as  fast  as  I  pulled  it  away.  She 
would  have  fought  for  that  sack,  I  believe,  until  she 
had  not  one  of  her  eight  legs  to  stand  on,  had  I 
been  cruel  enough  to  compel  her.  It  did  not  come 
to  this,  for  suddenly  the  sack  burst,  and  out  poured, 
to  my  amazement,  a  myriad  of  tiny  brown  spider- 
lings.  Before  I  could  think  what  to  do  that  mother 
spider  had  rushed  among  them  and  caused  them  to 
swarm  upon  her,  covering  her,  many  deep,  even  to 


68 


SUMMER 


the  outer  joints  of  her  long  legs.  I  did  not  disturb 
her  again,  but  stood  by  and  watched  her  slowly 
move  off  with  her  encrusting  family  to  a  place  of 
safety. 

I  had  seen  these  spiders  try  hard  to  escape  with 
their  egg-sacks  before,  but  had  never  tested  the 
strength  of  their  purpose.  For  a  time  after  this  ex- 
perience I  made  a  point  of  taking  the  sacks  away 
from  every  spider  I  found.  Most  of  them  scurried 
off  to  seek  their  own  safety ;  one  of  them  dropped 
her  sack  of  her  own  accord;  some  of  them  showed 
reluctance  to  leave  it ;  some  of  them  a  disposition  to 
fight;  but  none  of  them  the  fierce,  consuming 

mother-fire  of  the 
one  with  the  hurt 
leg. 

A m  o  ng    the 
fishes,  much  high- 
er animal  forms 
than    the    spiders, 
we  find  the  mother- 
love  only  in  the  males. 
It  is  the  male  stickleback  that 
builds  the  nest,  then  goes  out  and 
drives  the  female  in  to  lay  her  eggs, 
then  straightway  drives  her  out  to 
prevent  her  eating  them,  then  puts 
himself  on  guard  outside  the  nest  to  pro- 
tect   them   from   other   sticklebacks  and 


THE   MOTHER   MURRE  69 

other  enemies,  until  the  young  shall  hatch  and  be 
able  to  swim  away  by  themselves.  Here  he  stays  for 
a  month,  without  eating  or  sleeping,  so  far  as  we 
know. 

It  is  the  male  toadfish  that  crawls  into  the  nest- 
hole  and  takes  charge  of  the  numerous  family.  He 
may  dig  the  hole,  too,  as  the  male  stickleback  builds 
the  nest.  I  do  not  know  as  to  that.  But  I  have  raised 
many  a  stone  in  the  edge  of  the  tide  along  the  shore 
of  Naushon  Island  in  Buzzard's  Bay,  to  find  the 
under  surface  covered  with  round,  drop-like,  amber 
eggs,  and  in  the  shallow  cavity  beneath,  an  old  male 
toadfish,  slimy  and  croaking,  and  with  a  countenance 
ugly  enough  to  turn  a  prowling  eel  to  stone.  The 
female  deposits  the  eggs,  glues  them  fast  with  much 
nicety  to  the  under  surface  of  the  rock,  as  a  female 
might,  and  finishes  her  work.  Departing  at  once,  she 
leaves  the  coming  brood  to  the  care  of  the  male,  who 
from  this  time,  without  relief  or  even  food  in  all 
probability,  assumes  the  role  and  all  the  responsibili- 
ties of  mother,  and  must  consequently  feel  all  the 
mother-love. 

Something  like  this  is  true  of  the  common  horn- 
pout,  or  catfish,  I  believe,  though  I  have  never  seen 
it  recorded,  and  lack  the  chance  at  present  of  prov- 
ing my  earlier  observations.  I  think  it  is  father 
catfish  that  takes  charge  of  the  brood,  of  the 
swarm  of  kitten  catfish,  from  the  time  the  spawn 
is  laid. 


70  SUMMER 

A  curious  sharing  of  mother  qualities  by  male 
and  female  is  shown  in  the  Surinam  toads  of  South 
America,  where  the  male,  taking  the  newly  depos- 
ited eggs,  places  them  upon  the  back  of  the  female. 
Here,  glued  fast  by  their  own  adhesive  jelly,  they 
are  soon  surrounded  by  cells  grown  of  the  skin  of 
the  back,  each  cell  capped  by  a  lid.  In  these  cells  the 
eggs  hatch,  and  the  young  go  through  their  meta- 
morphoses, apparently  absorbing  some  nourishment 
through  the  skin  of  their  mother.  Finally  they  break 
through  the  lids  of  their  cells  and  hop  away.  They 
might  as  well  be  toadstools  upon  a  dead  stump,  so 
far  as  motherly  care  or  concern  goes,  for,  aside  from 
allowing  the  male  to  spread  the  eggs  upon  her  back, 
she  is  no  more  a  mother  to  them  than  the  dead  stump 
is  to  the  toadstools.  She  is  host  only  to  the  little 
parasites. 

I  do  not  know  of  any  mother-love  among  the  rep- 
tiles. The  mother-passion,  so  far  as  my  observation 
goes,  plays  no  part  whatever  in  the  life  of  reptiles. 
Whereas,  passing  on  to  the  birds,  the  mother-passion 
becomes  by  all  odds  the  most  interesting  thing  in 
bird-life. 

And  is  not  the  mother-passion  among  the  mam- 
mals even  more  interesting?  It  is  as  if  the  watcher 
in  the  woods  went  out  to  see  the  mother  animal  only. 
It  is  her  going  and  coming  that  we  follow;  her 
faring,  foraging,  and  watch-care  that  let  us  deepest 
into  the  secrets  of  wild  animal  life. 


THE   MOTHER   MURRE  71 

On  one  of  the  large  estates  here  in  Hingham,  a 
few  weeks  ago,  a  fox  was  found  to  be  destroying 
poultry.  The  time  of  the  raids,  and  their  boldness, 
were  proof  enough  that  the  fox  must  be  a  female 
with  young.  Poisoned  meat  was  prepared  for  her, 
and  at  once  the  raids  ceased.  A  few  days  later  one 
of  the  workmen  of  the  estate  came  upon  the  den  of 
a  fox,  at  the  mouth  of  which  lay  dead  a  whole  litter 
of  young  ones.  They  had  been  poisoned.  The 
mother  had  not  eaten  the  prepared  food  herself,  but 
had  carried  it  home  to  her  family.  They  must  have 
died  in  the  burrow,  for  it  was  evident  from  the  signs 
that  she  had  dragged  them  into  the  fresh  air  to  re- 
vive them,  and  deposited  them  gently  on  the  sand 
by  the  hole.  Then  in  her  perplexity  she  had  brought 
various  tidbits  of  mouse  and  bird  and  rabbit,  which 
she  placed  at  their  noses  to  tempt  them  to  wake  up 
out  of  their  strange  sleep  and  eat.  No  one  knows  how 
long  she  watched  beside  the  lifeless  forms,  nor  what 
her  emotions  were.  She  must  have  left  the  neighbor- 
hood soon  after,  however,  for  no  one  has  seen  her 
since  about  the  estate. 

The  bird  mother  is  the  bravest,  tenderest,  most 
appealing  thing  one  ever  comes  upon  in  the  fields. 
It  is  the  rare  exception,  but  we  sometimes  find  the 
real  mother  wholly  lacking  among  the  birds,  as  in 
the  case  of  our  notorious  cowbird,  who  sneaks  about, 
watching  her  chance,  when  some  smaller  bird  is 
gone,  to  drop  her  egg  into  its  nest.  The  egg  must 


72  SUMMER 

be  laid,  the  burden  of  the  race  has  been  put  upon 
the  bird,  but  not  the  precious  burden  of  the  child. 
She  lays  eggs;  but  is  not  a  mother. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  European  cuckoos,  but 
not  quite  true,  in  spite  of  popular  belief,  of  our 
American  cuckoos.  For  our  birds  (both  species) 
build  rude,  elementary  nests  as  a  rule,  and  brood 
their  eggs.  Occasionally  they  may  use  a  robin's  or 
a  catbird's  nest,  in  order  to  save  labor.  So  unde- 
veloped is  the  mother  in  the  cuckoo  that  if  you 
touch  her  eggs  she  will  leave  them — abandon  her 
rude  nest  and  eggs  as  if  any  excuse  were  excuse 
enough  for  an  escape  from  the  cares  of  motherhood. 
How  should  a  bird  with  so  little  mother-love  ever 
learn  to  build  a  firm- walled,  safe,  and  love-lined 
nest? 

The  great  California  condor  is  a  most  faithful 
and  anxious  mother ;  the  dumb  affection  of  both 
parent  birds,  indeed,  for  their  single  offspring  is  pa- 
thetically human.  On  the  other  hand,  the  mother  in 
the  turkey  buzzard  is  so  evenly  balanced  against  the 
vulture  in  her  that  I  have  known  a  brooding  bird  to 
be  so  upset  by  the  sudden  approach  of  a  man  as  to 
rise  from  off  her  eggs  and  devour  them  instantly, 
greedily,  and  make  off  on  her  serenely  soaring  wings 
into  the  clouds. 

Such  mothers,  however,  are  not  the  rule.  The 
buzzard,  the  cuckoo,  and  the  cowbird  are  the  strik- 
ing exceptions.  The  flicker  will  keep  on  laying  eggs 


THE   MOTHER   MURRE  73 

as  fast  as  one  takes  them  from  the  nest-hole,  until 
she  has  no  more  eggs  to  lay.  The  quail  will  some- 
times desert  her  nest  if  even  a  single  egg  is  so  much 
as  touched,  but  only  because  she  knows  that  she  has 
been  discovered  and  must  start  a  new  nest,  hidden 
in  some  new  place,  for  safety.  She  is  a  wise  and  de- 
voted mother,  keeping  her  brood  with  her  as  a 
" covey"  all  winter  long. 

One  of  the  most  striking  cases  of  mother-love 
which  has  ever  come  under  my  observation,  I  saw 
in  the  summer  of  1912  on  the  bird  rookeries  of  the 
Three- Arch  Rocks  Reservation  off  the  coast  of  Ore- 
gon. 

We  were  making  our  slow  way  toward  the  top  of 
the  outer  rock.  Through  rookery  after  rookery  of 
birds  we  climbed  until  we  reached  the  edge  of  the 
summit.  Scrambling  over  this  edge,  we  found  our- 
selves in  the  midst  of  a  great  colony  of  nesting 
murres — hundreds  of  them  —  covering  this  steep 
rocky  part  of  the  top. 

As  our  heads  appeared  above  the  rim,  many  of 
the  colony  took  wing  and  whirred  over  us  out  to 
sea,  but  most  of  them  sat  close,  each  bird  upon  its 
egg  or  over  its  chick,  loath  to  leave,  and  so  expose 
to  us  the  hidden  treasure. 

The  top  of  the  rock  was  somewhat  cone-shaped, 
and  in  order  to  reach  the  peak  and  the  colonies  on 
the  west  side  we  had  to  make  our  way  through  this 
rookery  of  the  murres.  The  first  step  among  them, 


74  SUMMER 

and  the  whole  colony  was  gone,  with  a  rush  of  wings 
and  feet  that  sent  several  of  the  top-shaped  eggs 
rolling,  and  several  of  the  young  birds  toppling  over 
the  cliff  to  the  pounding  waves  and  ledges  far  below. 

We  stopped,  but  the  colony,  almost  to  a  bird,  had 
bolted,  leaving  scores  of  eggs  and  scores  of  downy 
young  squealing  and  running  together  for  shelter, 
like  so  many  beetles  under  a  lifted  board. 

But  the  birds  had  not  every  one  bolted,  for  here 
sat  two  of  the  colony  among  the  broken  rocks. 
These  two  had  not  been  frightened  off.  That  both 
of  them  were  greatly  alarmed,  any  one  could  see 
from  their  open  beaks,  their  rolling  eyes,  their  tense 
bodies  on  tiptoe  for  flight.  Yet  here  they  sat,  their 
wings  out  like  props,  or  more  like  gripping  hands, 
as  if  they  were  trying  to  hold  themselves  down  to 
the  rocks  against  their  wild  desire  to  fly. 

And  so  they  were,  in  truth,  for  under  their  ex- 
tended wings  I  saw  little  black  feet  moving.  Those 
two  mother  murres  were  not  going  to  forsake  their 
babies !  No,  not  even  for  these  approaching  mon- 
sters, such  as  they  had  never  before  seen,  clamber- 
ing over  their  rocks. 

o 

What  was  different  about  these  two?  They  had 
their  young  ones  to  protect.  Yes,  but  so  had  every 
bird  in  the  great  colony  its  young  one,  or  its  egg, 
to  protect,  yet  all  the  others  had  gone.  Did  these 
two  have  more  mother-love  than  the  others?  And 
hence,  more  courage,  more  intelligence? 


THE   MOTHER   MURRE  75 

We  took  another  step  toward  them,  and  one  of 
the  two  birds  sprang  into  the  air,  knocking  her  baby 
over  and  over  with  the  stroke  of  her  wing,  and  com- 
ing within  an  inch  of  hurling  it  across  the  rim  to  be 
battered  on  the  ledges  below.  The  other  bird  raised 
her  wings  to  follow,  then  clapped  them  back  over 
her  baby.  Fear  is  the  most  contagious  thing  in  the 
world ;  and  that  flap  of  fear  by  the  other  bird  thrilled 
her,  too,  but  as  she  had  withstood  the  stampede  of 
the  colony,  so  she  caught  herself  again  and  held  on. 

She  was  now  alone  on  the  bare  top  of  the  rock, 
with  ten  thousand  circling  birds  screaming  to  her 


in  the  air  above,  and  with  two  men  creeping  up  to 
her  with  a  big  black  camera  that  clicked  ominously. 
She  let  the  multitude  scream,  and  with  threatening 
beak  watched  the  two  men  come  on.  A  motherless 
baby,  spying  her,  ran  down  the  rock  squealing  for 


76  SUMMER 

his  life.  She  spread  a  wing,  put  her  bill  behind  him 
and  shoved  him  quickly  in  out  of  sight  with  her 
own  baby.  The  man  with  the  camera  saw  the  act, 
for  I  heard  his  machine  click,  and  I  heard  him  say 
something  under  his  breath  that  you  would  hardly 
expect  a  mere  man  and  a  game- warden  to  say.  But 
most  men  have  a  good  deal  of  the  mother  in  them ; 
and  the  old  bird  had  acted  with  such  decision,  such 
courage,  such  swift,  compelling  instinct,  that  any 
man,  short  of  the  wildest  savage,  would  have  felt  his 
heart  quicken  at  the  sight. 

"Just  how  compelling  might  that  mother-instinct 
be?"  I  wondered.  "Just  how  much  would  that 
mother-love  stand?"  I  had  dropped  to  my  knees, 
and  on  all  fours  had  crept  up  within  about  three 
feet  of  the  bird.  She  still  had  chance  for  flight. 
Would  she  allow  me  to  crawl  any  nearer?  Slowly, 
very  slowly,  I  stretched  forward  on  my  hands,  like 
a  measuring-worm,  until  my  body  lay  flat  on  the 
rocks,  and  my  fingers  were  within  three  inches  of 
her.  But  her  wings  were  twitching,  a  wild  light 
danced  in  her  eyes,  and  her  head  turned  toward 
the  sea. 

For  a  whole  minute  I  did  not  stir.  I  was  watch- 
ing—  and  the  wings  again  began  to  tighten  about 
the  babies,  the  wild  light  in  the  eyes  died  down,  the 
long,  sharp  beak  turned  once  more  toward  me. 

Then  slowly,  very  slowly,  I  raised  my  hand, 
touched  her  feathers  with  the  tip  of  one  finger  — 


THE   MOTHER   MURRE  77 

with  two  fingers  —  with  my  whole  hand,  while  the 
loud  camera  click-clacked,  click-clacked  hardly  four 
feet  away ! 

It  was  a  thrilling  moment.  I  was  not  killing  any- 
thing. I  had  no  long-range  rifle  in  my  hands,  com- 
ing up  against  the  wind  toward  an  unsuspecting 
creature  hundreds  of  yards  away.  This  was  no 
wounded  leopard  charging  me ;  no  mother-bear  de- 
fending with  her  giant  might  a  captured  cub.  It 
was  only  a  mother-bird,  the  size  of  a  wild  duck,  with 
swift  wings  at  her  command,  hiding  under  those 
wings  her  own  and  another's  young,  and  her  own 
boundless  fear ! 

For  the  second  time  in  my  life  I  had  taken  cap- 
tive with  my  bare  hands  a  free  wild  bird.  No,  I  had 
not  taken  her  captive.  She  had  made  herself  a  cap- 
tive ;  she  had  taken  herself  in  the  strong  net  of  her 
mother-love. 

And  now  her  terror  seemed  quite  gone.  At  the 
first  touch  of  my  hand  I  think  she  felt  the  love  re- 
straining it,  and  without  fear  or  fret  she  let  me  reach 
under  her  and  pull  out  the  babies.  But  she  reached 
after  them  with  her  bill  to  tuck  them  back  out  of 
sight,  and  when  I  did  not  let  them  go,  she  sidled 
toward  me,  quacking  softly,  a  language  that  I  per- 
fectly understood,  and  was  quick  to  respond  to.  I 
gave  them  back,  fuzzy  and  black  and  white.  She 
got  them  under  her,  stood  up  over  them,  pushed  her 
wings  down  hard  around  them,  her  stout  tail  down 


78  SUMMER 

hard  behind  them,  and  together  with  them  pushed 
in  an  abandoned  egg  that  was  close  at  hand.  Her 
own  baby,  some  one  else's  baby,  and  some  one  else's 
forsaken  egg !  She  could  cover  no  more ;  she  had 
not  feathers  enough.  But  she  had  heart  enough  ; 
and  into  her  mother's  heart  she  had  already  tucked 
every  motherless  egg  and  nestling  of  the  thousands 
of  frightened  birds,  screaming  and  wheeling  in  the 
air  high  over  her  head. 


CHAPTER   IX 
MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS 

WHO  has  not  wondered/'  I  asked,  many 
years  ago,  "  as  he  has  seen  the  red  rim 
of  the  sun  sink  down  in  the  sea,  where 
the  little  brood  of  Mother  Carey's  chickens  skim- 
ming round  the  vessel  would  sleep  that  night?" 
Here  on  the  waves,  no  doubt,  but  what  a  bed ! 
You  have  seen  them,  or  you  will  see  them  the  first 
time  you  cross  the  ocean,  far  out  of  sight  of  land 
—  a  little  band  of  small  dark  birds,  veering,  glan- 
cing, skimming  the  heaving  sea  like  swallows,  or  rid- 
ing the  great  waves  up  and  down,  from  crest  to 
trough,  as  easily  as  Bobolink  rides  the  swaying  clo- 
ver billows  in  the  meadow  behind  the  barn. 

I  have  stood  at  the  prow  and  watched  them  as 
the  huge  steamer  ploughed  her  way  into  the  dark- 
ening ocean.  Down  in  the  depths  beneath  me  the 
porpoises  were  playing,  —  as  if  the  speeding  ship, 
with  its  mighty  engines,  were  only  another  porpoise 
playing  tag  with  them,  —  and  off  on  the  gray  sea 
ahead,  where  the  circle  of  night  seemed  to  be  closing 
in,  this  little  flock  of  stormy  petrels,  Mother  Carey's 
chickens,  rising,  falling  with  the  heave  and  sag  of 
the  sea,  so  far,  for  such  little  wings,  from  the  shore ! 


80 


SUMMER 


You  will  see  them,  and  you  will  ask  yourself,  as 
I  asked  myself,  "Where  is  their  home?  Where  do 
they  nest?"  I  hope  you  will  also  have  a  chance  to 


answer 
the  question 
some  time 
for   yourself,  as 
I  had  a  chance  to 
answer  it  for  myself 
recently,     out     on     the 
Three-Arch  Rocks,  in  the 
Pacific,  just  off  the  coast  of  Oregon. 

I  visited  the  rocks  to  see  all  their  multitudinous 
wild  life,  —  their  gulls,  cormorants,  murres,  guille- 
mots, puffins,  oyster-catchers,  and  herds  of  sea-lions, 
—  but  more  than  any  other  one  thing  I  wanted  to 
see  the  petrels,  Kaeding's  petrels,  that  nest  on  the 
top  of  Shag  Rock,  the  outermost  of  the  three  rocks 
of  the  Reservation. 

No,  not  merely  to  see  the  petrels :  what  I  really 
wished  to  do  was  to  stay  all  night  on  the  storm- 
swept  peak  in  order  to  hear  the  petrels  come  back 
to  their  nests  on  the  rock  in  the  dusk  and  dark. 
My  friend  Finley  had  done  it,  years  before,  on  this 
very  rock.  On  the  steep  north  slope  of  the  top  he 
had  found  a  safe  spot  between  two  jutting  crags, 


MOTHER   CAREY'S   CHICKENS  81 

and,  wrapping  himself  in  his  blanket  as  the  sun 
went  down  behind  the  hill  of  the  sea,  had  waived 
for  the  winnowing  of  the  small  mysterious  wings. 

Just  to  sleep  in  such  a  bed  would  be  enough.  To 
lie  down  far  up  on  the  ragged  peak  of  this  wild  sea 
rock,  with  the  break  and  swash  of  the  waves  coming 
up  from  far  beneath  you,  with  the  wide  sea-wind 
coming  in,  and  the  dusk  spreading  down^  and  the 
wild  sea-birds  murmuring  in  their  strange  tongues  all 
about  you  —  it  would  be  enough  just  to  turn  one's 
face  to  the  lonely  sky  in  such  a  spot  and  listen.  But 
how  much  more  to  hear  suddenly,  among  all  these 
strange  sounds,  the  swift  fanning  of  wings  —  to  feel 
them  close  above  your  face  —  and  to  see  in  the  dim 
dusk  wavering  shadowy  forms,  like  a  troop  of  long- 
winged  bats,  hovering  over  the  slope  and  chittering 
in  a  rapid,  unbirdlike  talk,  as  if  afraid  the  very  dark 
might  hear  them  ! 

That  was  what  I  wanted  so  much  to  hear  and  to 
see.  For  down  in  a  little  burrow,  in  the  accumulated 
earth  and  guano  of  the  top,  under  each  of  these 
hovering  shadows,  would  be  another  shadow,  wait- 
ing to  hear  the  beating  of  the  wings  and  the  chitter 
above  ;  and  I  wanted  to  see  the  mate  in  the  burrow 
come  out  and  greet  the  mate  that  had  been  all  day 
upon  the  sea. 

This  petrel  digs  itself  a  little  burrow  and  lays  one 
egg.  The  burrow  might  hold  both  birds  at  once, 
but  one  seldom  finds  two  birds  in  the  burrow  to- 


82  SUMMER 

gether.  While  one  is  brooding,  the  other  is  off  on 
its  wonderful  wings  —  away  off  in  the  wake  of  your 
ocean  steamer,  perhaps,  miles  and  miles  from  shore. 
But  when  darkness  falls  it  remembers  its  nest  and 
speeds  home  to  the  rock,  taking  its  place  down  in 
the  little  black  burrow,  while  the  mate  comes  forth 
and  spreads  its  wings  out  over  the  heaving  water, 
not  to  return,  it  may  be,  until  the  night  and  the  day 
have  passed  and  twilight  falls  again. 

We  landed  on  a  ledge  of  Shag  Rock,  driving  off 
a  big  bull  sea-lion  who  claimed  this  particular  slab  of 
rock  as  his  own.  We  backed  up  close  to  the  shelf  in 
a  yawl  boat,  and  as  the  waves  rose  and  fell,  watched 
our  chance  to  leap  from  the  stern  of  the  little  boat 
to  the  rock.  Thus  we  landed  our  cameras,  food  and 
water,  and  other  things,  then  we  dragged  the  boat 
up,  so  that,  a  storm  arising  or  anything  happening 
to  the  small  steamer  that  had  brought  us,  we  might 
still  get  away  to  the  shore. 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  forenoon.  All  the 
morning,  as  we  had  steamed  along,  a  thick  fog  had 
threatened  us ;  but  now  the  sun  broke  out,  making 
it  possible  to  use  our  cameras,  and  after  a  hasty 
lunch  we  started  for  the  top  of  the  rock  —  a  climb 
that  looked  impossible,  and  that  was  pretty  nearly 
as  impossible  as  it  looked. 

It  had  been  a  slow,  perilous  climb ;  but,  once  on 
the  summit,  where  we  could  move  somewhat  freely 
and  use  the  cameras,  we  hurried  from  colony  to 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     83 

colony  to  take  advantage  of  the  uncertain  sunlight, 
which,  indeed,  utterly  failed  us  after  only  an  hour's 
work.  But,  as  I  had  no  camera,  I  made  the  best  of  it, 
giving  all  my  time  to  studying  the  ways  of  the  birds. 
Besides,  I  had  come  to  stay  on  the  peak  all  night; 
I  could  do  my  work  well  enough  in  the  dark.  But 
I  could  not  do  it  in  the  wind  and  rain. 

The  sun  went  into  the  clouds  about  four  o'clock, 
but  so  absorbed  was  I  in  watching,  and  so  thick  was 
the  air  with  wings,  so  clangorous  with  harsh  tongues, 
that  I  had  not  seen  the  fog  moving  in,  or  noticed 
that  the  gray  wind  of  the  morning  had  begun  to 
growl  about  the  crags.  Looking  off  to  seaward,  I 
now  saw  that  a  heavy  bank  of  mist  had  blurred  the 
sky-line  and  settled  down  upon  the  sea.  The  wind 
had  freshened;  a  fine,  cold  drizzle  was  beginning  to 
fall,  and  soon  came  slanting  across  the  peak.  The 
prospect  was  grim  and  forbidding.  Then  the  rain 
began.  The  night  was  going  to  be  dark  and  stormy, 
too  wet  and  wild  for  watching,  here  where  I  must 
hang  on  with  my  hands  or  else  slip  and  go  over  — 
down  —  down  to  the  waves  below. 

We  started  to  descend  at  once,  while  there  was 
still  light  enough  to  see  by,  and  before  the  rocks 
were  made  any  slipperier  by  the  rain.  We  did  not 
fear  the  wind  much,  for  that  was  from  the  north, 
and  we  must  descend  by  the  south  face,  up  which  we 
had  come. 

I  was   deeply  disappointed.  My  night  with   the 


84  SUMMER 

petrels  on  the  top  was  out  of  the  question.  Yet  as 
I  backed  over  the  rim  of  that  peak,  and  began  to 
pick  my  way  down,  it  was  not  disappointment,  but 
fear  that  I  felt.  It  had  been  bad  enough  coming 
up;  but  this  going  down!  —  with  the  cold,  wet 
shadow  of  night  encircling  you  and  lying  dark  on 
the  cold,  sullen  sea  below  —  this  was  altogether 
worse. 

The  rocks  were  already  wet,  and  the  footing  was 
treacherous.  As  we  worked  slowly  along,  the  birds 
in  the  gathering  gloom  seemed  to  fear  us  less,  flying 
close  about  our  heads,  their  harsh  cries  and  winging 
tumult  adding  not  a  little  to  the  peril  of  the  descent. 
And  then  the  looking  down  !  and  then  the  impossi- 
bility at  places  of  even  looking  down  —  when  one 
could  only  hang  on  with  one's  hands  and  feel  around 
in  the  empty  air  with  one's  feet  for  something  to 
stand  on ! 

I  got  a  third  of  the  way  down,  perhaps,  and  then 
stopped.  The  men  did  not  laugh  at  me.  They  simply 
looped  a  rope  about  me,  under  my  arms,  and  lowered 
me  over  the  narrow  shelves  into  the  midst  of  a  large 
murre  colony,  from  which  point  I  got  on  alone. 
Then  they  tied  the  rope  about  Dallas,  my  eleven- 
year-old  son,  who  was  with  me  on  the  expedition, 
and  lowered  him. 

He  came  bumping  serenely  down,  smoothing  all 
the  little  murres  and  feeling  of  all  the  warm  eggs  on 
the  way,  as  if  they  might  have  been  so  many  little 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS  85 

kittens,  and  as  if  he  might  have  been  at  home  on  the 
kitchen  floor,  instead  of  dangling  down  the  face  of 
a  cliff  two  hundred  or  more  feet  above  the  sea. 

Some  forty  feet  from  the  waves  was  a  weathered 
niche,  or  shelf,  eight  or  ten  feet  wide.  Here  we 
stopped  for  the  night.  The  wind  was  from  the  other 
side  of  the  rock ;  the  overhanging  ledge  protected  us 
somewhat  from  above,  though  the  mist  swept  about 
the  steep  walls  to  us,  and  the  drizzle  dripped  from 
overhead.  But  as  I  pulled  my  blanket  about  me  and 
lay  down  beside  the  other  men  the  thought  of  what 
the  night  must  be  on  the  summit  made  the  hard, 
damp  rock  under  me  seem  the  softest  and  warmest 
of  beds. 

But  what  a  place  was  this  to  sleep  in  ! — this  nar- 
row ledge  with  a  rookery  of  wild  sea-birds  just  above 
it,  with  the  den  of  a  wild  sea-beast  just  below  it, 
with  the  storm-swept  sky  shut  down  upon  it,  and  the 
sea,  the  crawling,  sinister  sea,  coiling  and  uncoiling 
its  laving  folds  about  it,  as  with  endless  undulations 
it  slipped  over  the  sunken  ledges  and  swam  round 
and  round  the  rock. 

What  a  place  was  this  to  sleep !  I  could  not  sleep. 
I  was  as  wakeful  as  the  wild  beasts  that  come  forth 
at  night  to  seek  their  prey.  I  must  catch  a  glimpse 
of  Night  through  her  veil  of  mist,  the  gray,  ghostly 
Night,  as  she  came  down  the  long,  rolling  slope 
of  the  sea,  and  I  must  listen,  for  my  very  fingers 
seemed  to  have  ears,  so  many  were  the  sounds,  and 


86  SUMMER 

so  strange  —  the  talk  of  the  wind  on  the  rock,  the 
sweep  of  the  storm,  the  lap  of  the  waves,  the  rum- 
bling mutter  of  the  wakeful  caverns,  the  cry  of  birds, 
the  hoarse  grumbling  growl  of  the  sea-lions  swim- 
ming close  below. 

The  clamor  of  the  birds  was  at  first  disturbing. 
But  soon  the  confusion  caused  by  our  descent  among 
them  subsided ;  the  large  colony  of  murres  close  by 
our  heads  returned  to  their  rookery ;  and  with  the 
rain  and  thickening  dark  there  spread  everywhere  the 
quiet  of  a  low  murmurous  quacking.  Sleep  was  set- 
tling over  the  rookeries. 

Down  in  the  sea  below  us  rose  the  head  of  an  old 
sea-lion,  the  old  lone  bull  whose  den  we  had  invaded. 
He  was  coming  back  to  sleep.  He  rose  and  sank, 
blinking  dully  at  the  cask  we  had  left  on  his  ledge ; 
then  clambered  out  and  hitched  slowly  up  toward 
his  sleeping-place.  I  counted  the  scars  on  his  head, 
and  noted  the  fresh  deep  gash  on  his  right  side.  I 
could  hear  him  blow  and  breathe. 

I  drew  back  from  the  edge,  and,  pulling  the  piece 
of  sail-cloth  over  me  and  the  small  boy  at  my  side, 
turned  my  face  up  to  the  slanting  rain.  Two  young 
gulls  came  out  of  their  hiding  in  a  cranny  and  nestled 
against  my  head,  their  parents  calling  gently  to  them 
from  time  to  time  all  night  long.  In  the  murre  col- 
ony overhead  there  was  a  constant  stir  and  a  soft,  low 
talk,  and  over  all  the  rock,  through  all  the  darkened 
air  there  was  a  silent  coming  and  going  of  wings  — 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     87 

wings  —  of  the  stormy  petrels,  some  of  them,  I  felt 
sure,  the  swift  shadow  wings  of  Mother  Carey's 
chickens  that  I  had  so  longed  to  hear  come  winnow- 
ing in  from  afar  on  the  sea. 

The  drizzle  thickened.  And  now  I  heard  the 
breathing  of  the  sleeping  men  beside  me  ;  and  under 
me  I  felt  the  narrow  shelf  of  rock  dividing  the  waters 
from  the  waters,  and  then  —  I,  too, must  have  slept; 
for  utter  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep. 


CHAPTER  X 

RIDING   THE   RIM  ROCK 

FROM  P  Ranch  to  Winnemucca  is  a  seven- 
teen-day drive  through  a  desert  of  rim  rock 
and  greasewood  and  sage,  which,  under  the 
most  favorable  of  conditions,  is  beset  with  difficulty; 
but  which,  in  the  dry  season,  and  with  a  herd  of 
anything  like  four  thousand,  becomes  an  unbroken 
hazard.  More  than  anything  else  on  such  a  drive  is 
feared  the  wild  herd-spirit,  the  quick  black  temper  of 
the  cattle,  that  by  one  sign  or  another  ever  threatens 
to  break  the  spell  of  the  rider's  power  and  sweep  the 
maddened  or  terrorized  herd  to  destruction.  The 
handling  of  the  herd  to  keep  this  spirit  sleeping  is 
ofttimes  a  thrilling  experience. 

Some  time  before  my  visit  to  P  Ranch,  in  Harney 
County,  southeastern  Oregon,  in  the  summer  of 
1912,  the  riders  had  taken  out  a  herd  of  four  thou- 
sand steers  on  what  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most 
difficult  drives  ever  made  to  Winnemucca,  the  ship- 
ping station  in  northern  Nevada. 

For  the  first  two  days  on  the  trail  the  cattle  were 
strange  to  each  other,  having  been  gathered  from 
widely  distant  grazing-grounds,  —  from  the  Double  O 
and  the  Home  ranches,  — and  were  somewhat  clan- 


RIDING  THE   RIM   ROCK  89 

nish  and  restive  under  the  driving.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  third  day  signs  of  real  ugliness  appeared. 
The  hot  weather  and  a  shortage  of  water  began  to 
tell  on  the  temper  of  the  herd. 

The  third  day  was  long  and  exceedingly  hot.  The 
line  started  forward  at  dawn  and  all  day  long  kept 
moving,  with  the  sun  cooking  the  bitter  smell  of  sage 
into  the  air,  and  with  the  sixteen  thousand  hoofs 
kicking  up  a  still  bitterer  smother  of  alkali  dust  that 
inflamed  eyes  and  nostrils  and  coated  the  very  lungs 
of  the  cattle.  The  fierce  desert  thirst  was  upon  the 
herd  long  before  it  reached  the  creek  where  it  was  to 
bed  for  the  night.  The  heat  and  the  dust  had  made 
slow  work  of  the  driving,  and  it  was  already  late 
when  they  reached  the  creek  —  only  to  find  it  dry. 

This  was  bad.  The  men  were  tired.  But,  worse, 
the  cattle  were  thirsty,  and  Wade,  the  "  boss  of  the 
buckaroos,"  pushed  the  herd  on  toward  the  next  rim 
rock,  hoping  to  get  down  to  the  plain  below  to  water 
before  the  end  of  the  slow  desert  twilight.  Anything 
for  the  night  but  a  dry  camp. 

They  had  hardly  started  on  when  a  whole  flank  of 
the  herd,  as  if  by  prearrangement,  suddenly  break- 
ing away  and  dividing  about  two  of  the  riders,  tore 
off  through  the  brush.  The  horses  were  as  tired  as  the 
men,  and  before  the  chase  was  over  the  twilight  was 
gray  in  the  sage  and  it  became  necessary  to  halt  at 
once  and  make  camp  where  they  were.  They  would 
have  to  go  without  water. 


90  SUMMER 

The  runaways  were  brought  up  and  the  herd  closed 
in  till  it  formed  a  circle  nearly  a  mile  around.  This 
was  as  close  as  it  could  be  drawn,  for  the  cattle  would 
not  bed  —  lie  down.  They  wanted  water  more  than 
they  wanted  rest.  Their  eyes  were  red,  their  tongues 
raspy  with  thirst.  The  situation  was  a  serious  one. 

But  camp  was  made.  Two  of  the  riders  were  sent 
back  along  the  trail  to  bring  up  the  "  drags,"  while 
Wade  with  his  other  men  circled  the  uneasy  cattle, 
closing  them  in,  quieting  them,  and  doing  everything 
possible  to  make  them  bed. 

But  they  were  thirsty,  and,  instead  of  bedding,  the 
herd  began  to  "  growl "  —  a  distant  mutter  of  throats, 
low,  rumbling,  ominous,  as  when  faint  thunder  rolls 
behind  the  hills.  Every  plainsman  fears  the  growl, 
for  it  usually  is  a  prelude  to  the  "  milling,"  as  it 
proved  to  be  now,  when  the  whole  vast  herd  began 
to  stir,  slowly,  singly,  and  without  direction,  till  at 
length  it  moved  together,  round  and  round,  a  great 
compact  circle,  the  multitude  of  clicking  hoofs,  of 
clashing  horns,  and  chafing  sides  like  the  sound 
of  rushing  rain  across  a  field  of  corn. 

Nothing  could  be  worse  for  the  cattle.  The  cooler 
twilight  was  falling,  but,  mingling  with  it,  rose  and 
thickened  and  spread  the  choking  dust  from  their  feet 
that  soon  covered  them  and  shut  out  all  but  the  dark 
wall  of  the  herd  from  sight. 

Slowly,  evenly  swung  the  wall,  round  and  round 
without  a  break.  Only  one  who  has  watched  a  mill- 


RIDING  THE   RIM   ROCK  91 

ing  herd  can  know  its  suppressed  excitement.  To 
keep  that  excitement  in  check  was  the  problem  of 
Wade  and  his  men.  And  the  night  had  not  yet  be- 
gun. 

When  the  riders  had  brought  in  the  drags  and 
the  chuck-wagon  had  lumbered  up  with  supper,  Wade 
set  the  first  watch. 

Along  with  the  wagon  had  come  the  fresh  horses 
—  and  Peroxide  Jim,  a  supple,  powerful,  clean-limbed 
buckskin,  that  had,  I  think,  as  fine  and  intelligent 
an  animal-face  as  any  I  ever  saw.  And  why  should 
he  not  have  been  saved  fresh  for  just  such  a  need  as 
this?  Are  there  not  superior  horses  to  match  supe- 
rior men  —  a  Peroxide  Jim  to  complement  a  Wade 
and  so  combine  a  real  centaur,  noble  physical  power 
controlled  by  noble  intelligence?  At  any  rate,  the 
horse  understood  the  situation,  and  though  there  was 
nothing  like  sentiment  about  the  boss  of  the  P 
Ranch  riders,  his  faith  in  Peroxide  Jim  was  complete. 

The  other  night  horses  were  saddled  and  tied  to 
the  wheels  of  the  wagon.  It  was  Wade's  custom  to 
take  his  turn  with  the  second  watch  ;  but,  shifting 
his  saddle  to  Peroxide  Jim,  he  rode  out  with  the  four 
of  the  first  watch,  who,  evenly  spaced,  were  quietly 
circling  the  herd. 

The  night,  for  this  part  of  the  desert,  was  unusu- 
ally warm;  it  was  close,  silent,  and  without  a  sky. 
The  near  thick  darkness  blotted  out  the  stars.  There 
is  usually  a  breeze  at  night  over  these  highest  rim- 


92  SUMMER 

rock  plains  that,  no  matter  how  hot  the  day, 
crowds  the  cattle  together  for  warmth.  To-night  not 
a  breath  stirred  the  sage  as  Wade  wound  in  and  out 
among  the  bushes,  the  hot  dust  stinging  his  eyes  and 
caking  rough  on  his  skin. 

Kound  and  round  moved  the  weaving,  shifting 
forms,  out  of  the  dark  and  into  the  dark,  a  gray 
spectral  line  like  a  procession  of  ghosts,  or  some  slow 
morris  of  the  desert's  sheeted  dead.  But  it  was  not 
a  line,  it  was  a  sea  of  forms ;  not  a  procession,  but 
the  even  surging  of  a  maelstrom  of  hoofs  a  mile 
around. 

Wade  galloped  out  on  the  plain  for  a  breath  of 
air  and  a  look  at  the  sky.  A  quick  cold  rain  would 
quiet  them  ;  but  there  was  no  feel  of  rain  in  the  dark- 
ness, no  smell  of  it  in  the  air.  Only  the  powdery 
taste  of  bitter  sage. 

The  desert,  where  the  herd  had  camped,  was  one 
of  the  highest  of  a  series  of  tablelands,  or  benches, 
that  lay  as  level  as  a  floor,  and  rimmed  by  a  sheer 
wall  of  rock  over  which  it  dropped  to  the  bench  of 
sage  below.  The  herd  had  been  headed  for  a  pass, 
and  was  now  halted  within  a  mile  of  the  rim  rock  on 
the  east,  where  there  was  about  three  hundred  feet 
of  perpendicular  fall. 

It  was  the  last  place  an  experienced  plainsman 
would  have  chosen  for  a  camp ;  and  every  time  Wade 
circled  the  herd  and  came  in  between  the  cattle  and 
the  rim,  he  felt  its  nearness.  The  darkness  helped  to 


RIDING   THE   RIM  ROCK  93 

bring  it  near.  The  height  of  his  horse  brought  it 
near — he  seemed  to  look  down  from  his  saddle  over 
it,  into  its  dark  depths.  The  herd  in  its  milling 
was  surely  warping  slowly  in  the  direction  of  the 
precipice.  But  this  was  all  fancy  —  the  trick  of  ,the» 
dark  and  of  nerves,  if  a  plainsman  has  nerves. 

At  twelve  o'clock  the  first  guard  came  in  and 
woke  the  second  watch.  Wade  had  been  in  his  sad- 
dle since  dawn,  but  this  was  his  regular  watch. 
More  than  that,  his  trained  ear  had  timed  the  mill- 
ing hoofs.  The  movement  of  the  herd  had  quick- 
ened. 

If  now  he  could  keep  them  going  and  could  pre- 
vent their  taking  any  sudden  fright !  They  must 
not  stop  until  they  stopped  from  utter  weariness* 
Safety  lay  in  their  continued  motion.  So  Wade,  with 
the  fresh  riders,  flanked  them  closely,  paced  them, 
and  urged  them  quietly  on.  They  must  be  kept  mill- 
ing, and  they  must  be  kept  from  fright. 

In  the  taut  silence  of  the  starless  desert  night, 
with  the  tension  of  the  cattle  at  the  snapping-point, 
any  quick,  unwonted  sight  or  sound  would  stam- 
pede the  herd  —  the  sneezing  of  a  horse,  the  flare 
of  a  match,  enough  to  send  the  whole  four  thousand 
headlong  —  blind,  frenzied,  tramping  —  till  spent 
and  scattered  over  the  plain. 

And  so,  as  he  rode,  Wade  began  to  sing.  The 
rider  ahead  of  him  took  up  the  air  and  passed  it  on, 
until,  above  the  stepping  stir  of  the  hoofs,  rose  the 


94  SUMMER 

faint  voices  of  the  men,  and  all  the  herd  was  bound 
about  by  the  slow,  plaintive  measure  of  some  old 
song.  It  was  not  to  soothe  their  savage  breasts  that 
the  riders  sang  to  the  cattle,  but  to  prevent  the 
•shock  of  any  loud  or  sudden  noise. 

So  they  sang  and  rode,  and  the  night  wore  on  to 
one  o'clock,  when  Wade,  coming  up  on  the  rim-rock 
side,  felt  a  cool  breeze  fan  his  face,  and  caught  a 
breath  of  fresh,  moist  wind  with  the  taste  of  water 
in  it. 

He  checked  his  horse  instantly,  listening  as  the 
wind  swept  past  him  over  the  cattle.  But  they  must 
already  have  smelled  it,  for  they  had  ceased  their 
milling.  The  whole  herd  stood  motionless,  the  indis- 
tinct forms  nearest  him  showing,  in  the  dark,  their 
bald  faces  lifted  to  drink  the  sweet  wet  breath  that 
came  over  the  rim.  Then  they  started  again,  but 
faster,  and  with  a  rumbling  from  their  hoarse  throats 
that  tightened  Wade's  grip  on  his  reins. 

The  sound  seemed  to  come  out  of  the  earth,  a  low, 
rumbling  mumble,  as  deep  as  the  night  and  as  wide 
as  the  plain,  a  thick,  inarticulate  bellow  that  stood 
every  rider  stiff  in  his  stirrups. 

The  breeze  caught  the  dust  and  carried  it  back 
from  the  gray-coated,  ghostly  shapes,  and  Wade  saw 
that  they  were  still  moving  in  a  circle.  If  only  he 
could  keep  them  going !  He  touched  his  horse  to 
ride  on  with  them,  when  across  the  black  sky  flashed 
a  vivid  streak  of  lightning. 


RIDING   THE   RIM   ROCK  95 

There  was  a  snort  from  the  steers,  a  quick  clap  of 
horns  and  hoofs  from  within  the  herd,  a  tremor  of 
the  plain,  a  roar,  a  surging  mass  —  and  Wade  was 
riding  the  flank  of  a  wild  stampede.  Before  him, 
behind  him,  beside  him,  pressing  hard  upon  his 
horse,  galloped  the  frenzied  steers,  and  beyond  them 
a  multitude,  borne  on,  and  bearing  him  on,  by  the 
heave  of  the  galloping  herd. 

Wade  was  riding  for  his  life.  He  knew  it.  His 
horse  knew  it.  He  was  riding  to  turn  the  herd,  too, 
—  back  from  the  rim,  —  as  the  horse  also  knew. 
The  cattle  were  after  water  —  water-mad  —  and 
would  go  over  the  precipice  to  get  it,  carrying  horse 
and  rider  with  them. 

Wade  was  the  only  rider  between  the  herd  and  the 
rim.  It  was  black  as  death.  He  could  see  nothing  in 
the  sage,  could  scarcely  discern  the  pounding,  pant- 
ing shadows  at  his  side ;  but  he  knew  by  the  swish 
of  the  brush  and  the  plunging  of  the  horse  that  the 
ground  was  growing  stonier,  that  they  were  nearing 
the  rocks. 

To  outrun  the  cattle  seemed  his  only  chance.  If 
he  could  come  up  with  the  leaders  he  might  yet  head 
them  off  upon  the  plain  and  save  the  herd.  There 
were  cattle  still  ahead  of  him,  —  how  many,  what 
part  of  the  herd,  he  could  not  tell.  But  the  horse 
knew.  The  reins  hung  on  his  straight  neck,  while 
Wade,  yelling  and  firing  into  the  air,  gave  him  the 
race  to  win,  to  lose. 


96  SUMMER 

Suddenly  they  veered  and  went  high  in  the  air, 
as  a  steer  plunged  headlong  into  a  draw  almost  be- 
neath his  feet.  They  cleared  the  narrow  ravine, 
landed  on  bare  rock,  and  reeled  on. 

They  were  riding  the  rim.  Close  on  their  left 
bore  down  the  flank  of  the  herd,  and  on  their  right, 
under  their  very  feet,  was  the  precipice,  so  close  that 
theyfeltits  blackness — its  three  hundred  feet  of  fall. 

A  piercing,  half-human  bawl  of  terror  told  where 
a  steer  had  been  crowded  over.  Would  the  next  leap 
crowd  them  over  too?  Then  Wade  found  himself 
racing  neck  and  neck  with  a  big  white  steer,  which 
the  horse,  with  marvelous  instinct,  seemed  to  pick 
from  a  bunch,  and  to  cling  to,  forcing  him  gradually 
ahead,  till,  cutting  him  free  from  the  bunch  entirely, 
he  bore  him  off  into  the  sage. 

The  group  coming  on  behind  followed  the  leader, 
and  after  them  swung  others.  The  tide  was  turning. 
Within  a  short  time  the  whole  herd  had  veered,  and, 
bearing  off  from  the  cliffs,  was  pounding  over  the 
open  plains. 

Whose  race  was  it?  It  was  Peroxide  Jim's,  ac- 
cording to  Wade,  for  not  by  word  or  by  touch  of 
hand  or  knee  had  he  been  directed  in  the  run.  From 
the  flash  of  the  lightning  the  horse  had  taken  the 
bit,  had  covered  an  indescribably  perilous  path  at 
top  speed,  had  outrun  the  herd  and  turned  it  from 
the  edge  of  the  rim  rock,  without  a  false  step  or  a 
shaken  nerve. 


(Page  7} 


NECK  AND  NECK  WITH  A  BIG  WHITE  STEER  " 


RIDING  THE   RIM   ROCK  99 

Bred  on  the  desert,  broken  in  at  the  round-up, 
trained  to  think  steer  as  the' rider  thinks  it,  the  horse 
knew,  as  swiftly,  as  clearly  as  his  rider,  the  work  be- 
fore him.  But  that  he  kept  himself  from  fright,  that 
none  of  the  wild  herd-madness  passed  into  him,  is  a 
thing  for  great  wonder.  He  was  as  thirsty  as  any  of 
the  herd ;  he  knew  his  own  peril,  I  believe,  as  none 
of  the  herd  had  ever  known  anything,  and  yet  such 
coolness,  courage,  wisdom,  and  power ! 

Was  it  training  ?  Superior  intelligence  ?  More  in- 
timate association  with  the  man  on  his  back,  and  so 
a  farther  remove  from  jthe  wild  thing  that  domesti- 
cation does  not  seem  to  touch  ?  Or  was  it  all  by  sug- 
gestion, the  superior  intelligence  above  him  riding, 
not  only  the  flesh,  but  the  spirit? 

Not  all  suggestion,  I  believe.  Perhaps  a  herd  of 
horses  could  not  be  stampeded  so  easily  as  these  P 
Ranch  cattle.  In  this  race,  however,  nothing  of  the 
wild  herd-spirit  touched  the  horse.  Had  the  cattle 
been  horses,  would  Peroxide  Jim  have  been  able  to 
keep  himself  outside  the  stampede  and  above  the 
spirit  of  the  herd? 


CHAPTER  XI 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS    TO    DO    THIS    SUMMER 


FIRST,  select  some  bird  or  beast  or  insect  that 
lives  with  you  in  your  dooryard  or  house  or 
near  neighborhood,  and  keep  track  of  his 
doings  all  summer  long,  jotting  down  in  a  diary 
your  observations.  You  might  take  the  white-faced 
hornet  that  builds  the  big  paper  nests  in  the  trees ; 
or  the  mud  wasp,  or  the  toad  under  the  steps,  or  the 
swifts  in  the  chimney,  or  the  swallows  in  the  barn.  It 
hardly  matters  what  you  take,  for  every  life  is  inter- 
esting. The  object  is  to  learn  how  to  follow  up  your 
study,  how  to  watch  one  life  long  enough,  and  under 
circumstances  different  enough,  to  discover  its  many- 
sidedness,  its  fascination  and  romance.  Such  careful 
and  prolonged  study  will  surely  reveal  to  you  some- 
thing no  one  else  has  seen,  too.  It  will  be  good  train- 
ing in  patience  and  independence. 

II 

Along  with  this  study  of  one  life,  keep  a  list  of 
all  the  beasts,  birds,  insects.,  flowers,  etc.,  that  live  — 
I  mean,  that  build  nests  or  dig  holes  and  rear  fami- 
lies —  in  your  dooryard  or  in  this  "  haunt "  that  I 


THINGS   TO   DO  THJS 

told  you  in  "  The  Spring  of  the  Year  "  (see  page  42, 
Sections  in  and  iv)  you  ought  to  pick  out  as  your  own 
field  of  study.  This  list  will  grow  all  through  the  sum- 
mer and  from  year  to  year.  I  have  a  list  of  seventy- 
six  wild  neighbors  (not  counting  the  butterflies  and 
insects)  that  are  sharing  my  four  teen-acre  farm  with 
me.  How  many  and  what  wild  things  are  sharing 
your  dooryard,  your  park,  your  favorite  haunt  or 
farm  with  you  ?  Such  a  list  of  names,  with  a  blank 
place  left  for  each  where  observations  can  be  en- 
tered from  time  to  time,  would  be  one  of  the  most 
useful  and  interesting  journals  you  could  keep. 

Ill 

All  through  June  and  into  July  you  should  have 
a  round  of  birds'  nests  that  you  visit  daily,  and  to 
which  you  can  take  your  friends  and  visitors  —  that 
is,  if  you  live  in  or  near  the  country.  One  will  be 
in  the  big  unused  chimney  of  the  house,  perhaps, 
and  that  will  be  the  first ;  then  one  in  the  barn,  or 
in  a  bird-house  in  the  yard ;  or  in  the  pear-  or  apple- 
tree  hole ;  one  in  the  lilac  or  honeysuckle  bushes,  and 
then  down  into  the  orchard,  out  into  the  meadow, 
on  into  the  woods  and  back  —  taking  in  twenty  to 
thirty  birds'  nests  with  eggs  and  young !  Did  you 
ever  do  it  ?  Can  you  do  it  this  summer  ?  Don't  you 
think  it  would  be  quite  as  exciting  and  interesting 
as  going  to  the  circus?  I  can  do  it;  and  if  you 
come  out  to  Mullein  Hill  in  June  or  July,  any  one 


\m;  K-'         .SUMMER 

of  my  small  boys  will  take  you  on  his  "  birds'  nest 
round." 

IV 

You  should  camp  out  —  even  if  you  have  to  pitch 
your  tent  in  the  back  yard  or  up  on  the  roof !  You 
should  go  to  sleep  on  a  bed  of  boughs,  —  pine,  or 
spruce,  or  hickory,  if  possible, —  or  swing  your  ham- 
mock between  the  trunks  of  sweet-smelling  forest 
trees,  and  turn  your  face  up  to  the  stars  !  You  will 
never  want  to  sleep  in  a  room  with  closed  windows 
after  that.  To  see  the  stars  looking  down  upon  you; 
to  see  the  tree-tops  swaying  over  you ;  to  feel  the  fresh 
night  wind  stealing  across  your  face  and  breathing 
into  your  very  soul  —  yes,  you  must  sleep  at  least 
one  night  this  summer  right  out  on  a  bed  of  boughs ; 
but  with  a  blanket  of  wool  and  a  piece  of  sail-cloth 
or  rubber  coat  over  you  and  under  you,  and  perhaps 
some  mosquito-netting. 


But  you  must  not  build  a  fire  in  the  woods,  unless 
you  have  a  guide  or  older  people  with  a  permit 
along.  Fires  are  terrible  masters,  and  it  is  almost  as 
dangerous  to  build  a  fire  in  the  woods  as  to  build 
one  in  the  waste-paper  basket  in  the  basement  of 
some  large  store.  Along  the  seashore  or  by  the  mar- 
gin of  a  river  or  lake,  if  you  take  every  precaution, 
it  might  be  safe  enough ;  but  in  the  woods,  if  camp- 
ing out,  make  all  preparations  by  clearing  a  wide 


THINGS   TO   DO  THIS  SUMMER         103 

space  down  to  the  bare  ground,  then  see  that  it  is 
bare  ground  and  not  a  boggy,  rooty  peat-bed  be- 
neath, that  will  take  fire  and  smoulder  and  burn 
away  down  under  the  surface  out  of  sight,  to  break 
through,  perhaps,  a  week  after  you  have  gone,  and 
set  the  whole  mountain-side  afire.  Build  your  fire 
on  bare,  sandy  earth;  have  a  shovel  and  can  of 
water  at  hand,  and  put  the  fire  out  when  you  are 
done  with  it.  It  is  against  the  law  in  most  States  to 
set  a  fire  out  of  doors  after  the  1st  of  April,  without 
a  permit  from  the  fire-warden. 

Now,  after  this  caution,  you  ought  to  go  out  some 
evening  by  the  shore  with  a  small  party  and  roast 
some  green  corn  in  the  husk;  then,  wrapping  some 
potatoes  in  clay,  bake  them ;  if  you  have  fish,  wrap 
them  in  clay  with  their  scales  on,  and  bake  them. 
The  scales  will  come  off  beautifully  when  the  clay 
is  cracked  off,  and  leave  you  the  tastiest  meal  of 
fish  and  potatoes  and  corn  you  ever  ate.  Every  boy 
and  girl  ought  to  have  a  little  camp-life  and  ought 
to  have  each  his  share  of  camp-work  to  perform  this 
summer. 

VI 

At  the  close  of  some  stifling  July  day  you  ought 
to  go  out  into  the  orchard  or  woods  and  watch  the 
evening  come  on  —  to  notice  how  the  wild  life  re- 
vives, flowers  open,  birds  sing,  animals  stir,  breezes 
start,  leaves  whisper,  and  all  the  world  awakes. 


104  SUMMER 

Then  follow  that  up  by  getting  out  the  next 
morning  before  sunrise,  say  at  half-past  three  o'clock, 
an  hour  before  the  sun  bursts  over  the  eastern  hills. 
If  you  are  not  a  stump  or  a  stone,  the  sight  and  the 
smell — the  whole  indescribable  freshness  and  won- 
der of  it  all  —  will  thrill  you.  Would  you  go  to  the 
Pyramids  or  Niagara  or  the  Yellowstone  Park?  Yes, 
you  would,  and  you  would  take  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  to  see  any  one  of  these  wonders!  Just  as 
great  a  wonder,  just  as  thrilling  an  experience,  is 
right  outside  of  your  bedroom  early  any  June,  July, 
or  August  morning!  I  know  boys  and  girls  who 
never  saw  the  sun  get  up! 

VII 

You  ought  to  spend  some  time  this  summer  on  a 
real  farm.  Boy  or  girl,  you  need  to  feel  ploughed 
ground  under  your  feet;  you  need  the  contact  with 
growing  things  in  the  ground;  you  need  to  handle 
a  hoe,  gather  the  garden  vegetables,  feed  the  chick- 
ens, feed  the  pigs,  drive  the  cows  to  pasture,  help 
stow  away  the  hay  —  and  all  the  other  interesting 
experiences  that  make  up  the  simple,  elemental,  and 
wonderfully  varied  day  of  farm  life.  A  mere  visit  is 
not  enough.  You  need  to  take  part  in  the  digging 
and  weeding  and  planting.  The  other  day  I  let  out 
my  cow  after  keeping  her  all  winter  in  the  barn. 
The  first  thing  she  did  was  to  kick  up  her  heels  and 
run  to  a  pile  of  fresh  earth  about  a  newly  planted 


THINGS   TO   DO   THIS   SUMMER 


105 


tree  and  fall  to  eating  it — not  the  tree,  but  the 
earth,  the  raw,  rich  soil  —  until  her  muzzle  was 
muddy  halfway  to  her  eyes.  You  do  not  need  to  eat 
it;  but  the  need  to  smell  it,  to  see  it,  to  feel  it,  to 
work  in  it,  is  just  as  real  as  the  cow's  need  to  eat  it. 

VIII 

You  ought  to  learn  how  to  browse  and  nibble  in 
the  woods.  What  do  I  mean?  Why,  just  this:  that 
you  ought  to 
learn  how  to 
taste  the  woods 
as  well  as  to  see 
them.  Maurice 
Thompson,  in 
"  Byways  and 

Bird      Notes,"  SASSAFRAS 

a  book  you 
ought  to  read  (and  that  is  another  "ought  to  do" 
for  this  summer),  has  a  chapter  called  "  Browsing 
and  Nibbling"  in  which  his  mountain  guide  says: 
"What  makes  me  allus  a-nibblin'  an'  a-browsin'  of 
the  bushes  an'  things  as  I  goes  along?  I  kinder 
b'lieve  hit  keeps  a  feller's  heart  stiddy  an'  his  blood 
pure  for  to  nibble  an'  browse  kinder  like  a  deer 
does.  You  know  a  deer  is  allus  strong  an'  active, 
an'  hit  is  everlastin'ly  a-nibblin'  an'  a-browsin'.  Ef 
hit  is  good  for  the  annymel,  hit  otter  be  good  for 
the  feller." 


106 


SUMMER 


The  guide  may  not  be  right  about  the  strength  to 
be  had  from  tasting  the  roots  and  barks  and  buds  of 
things,  but  I  know  that  I  am  right  when  I  tell  you 
that  the  very  sap  of  the  summer  woods  will  seem  to 
mingle  with  your  blood  at  the  taste  of  the  aromatic 
sassafras  root,  the  spicy  bark  of  the  sweet  birch  and 


DEADLY  NIGHTSHADE 


the  biting  bulb  of  the  Indian  turnip.  Many  of  the  per- 
fumes, odors,  resins,  gums,  saps,  and  nectars  of  the 
woods  can  be  known  to  you  only  by  sense  of  taste. 


THINGS  TO  DO  THIS   SUMMER         107 

IX 

"  But  I  shall  bite  into  something  poisonous,"  you 
say.  Yes,  you  must  look  out  for  that,  and  you  must 


POISON   SUMACH 


take  the  pains  this  summer  to  learn  the  poisonous 
things  of  our  woods  and  fields.  So  before  you  begin 
to  browse  and  nibble,  make  a  business  of  learning  the 


108 


SUMMER 


deadly  nightshade  with  its  green  or  its  red  berries; 
the  poison  sumach  with  its  loose  panicles  or  clusters 


POISON  IVY 


of  grayish-white  berries;  the  three-leaved  poison  ivy 
or  "  ground  oak  "  (which  you  can  easily  tell  from 
the  five-leaved  Virginia  creeper) ;  and  the  deadly 
mushrooms  with  their  bulbous  roots.  These  are  the 
poisonous  plants  that  you  will  meet  with  most  fre- 
quently, but  there  are  a  few  others,  and  it  will  be 


THINGS  TO  DO   THIS   SUMMER 


109 


safest  not  to  nibble  any  plant  that  is  strange  to  you. 
Nor  am  I  suggesting  that  you  make  a  meal  on  the 

pitch  of  the  pine  trees 
or    anything    else. 
Do  not  eat  any  of 
these  things  ; 
taste    them 
only.     I    was 
once    made 
desperately  ill 


VIRGINIA  CREEPER 


by  eating  poke  root  (I  was 

a  very  little  child)  which 

I  took  for  sweet  potato. 

Poke  berries  are  not  good  to 

eat.    Take  along  a  few  good 

sandwiches  from  home  to  eat. 

But  learn  to  know  the  mints,  the 

medicinal  roots  and  barks,  and 

that  long  list  of    old-fashioned 

"  herbs"  that  our  grandmothers  hung  from  the  garret 

rafters  and  made  us  take  occasionally  as  "  tea." 


110 


SUMMER 


A.  phalloides 


Finally,  as  a  lover  of  the  woods  and  wild  life,  you 
ought  to  take  a  personal  responsibility  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  the 
trees  and  woods 
in  your  neigh- 
borhood, and  of 
the  birds  and 
beasts  and  other 
lowlier  forms  of 
wild  life.  Year 
by  year  the  wild 
things  are  van- 
ishing never  to 
return  to  your 
woods,  and  never 
to  be  seen  again 
by  man.  Do 
what  you  can  to 
stop  the  hunting 
and  ignorant 
killing  of  every 
sort.  You  ought 
to  get  and  read 
"Our  Vanish- 
ing Wild  Life/' 
by  William  T. 
Hornaday,  and  then  join  the  growing  host  of  us 


ntappa 

THE  DEADLY  AMANITA 


THINGS   TO   DO   THIS   SUMMER 


111 


who,  alarmed  at  the  fearful  increase  of  insect  pests, 
and  the  loss  to  the  beauty  and  interest  of  the  out- 


POKE 


of-doors  through  the  extermination  of  wild  life,  are 
doing  our  best  to  save  the  wild  things  we  still  have 
and  to  increase  their  numbers. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    "  CONY  " 

WE  were  threading  our  slow  way  along  the 
narrow  divide  of  the  Wallowa  Mountains 
that  runs  between  the  branches  of  the 
Snake  River.  Our  guide  was  a  former  "  camp-ten- 
der/' one  who  carries  provisions  to  the  sheep-herders 
in  the  mountains.  As  we  were  stopping  a  moment  to 
breathe  our  horses  and  to  look  down  upon  the  head 
springs  of  Big  Sheep  and  Salt  Lick  Creeks  on  one 
side,  and  the  narrow  ribbon  of  the  Imnaha  on  the 
other,  this  guide  and  our  mammal-collector  rode  on 
ahead.  An  hour  later  I  saw  them  round  the  breast 
of  a  peak  far  along  on  the  trail  and  disappear.  That 
night  they  brought  into  camp  a  "cony,"  or  pika,  or 
little  chief  hare. 

The  year  before,  this  camp-tender,  in  passing  a 
certain  rock-slide  among  the  high  peaks  of  the  pass, 
had  heard  and  seen  a  peculiar  little  animal  about  the 
size  and  shape  of  a  small  guinea-pig,  whistling  among 
the  broken  rock.  He  had  never  seen  the  little  creature 
before,  —  had  never  heard  of  it.  It  was  to  this  slide 
that  he  now  took  our  naturalist,  in  the  hope  of  show- 
ing him  the  mountain  guinea-pig,  and,  sure  enough, 
they  brought  one  back  with  them,  and  showed  me 


THE    "CONY"  113 

my  first  "cony,"  one  of  the  rarest  of  American 
mammals. 

But  I  was  broken-hearted.  That  I  should  have  been 
so  near  and  missed  it !  For  we  had  descended  to 
Aneroid  Lake  to  camp  that  night,  and  there  were  no 
cony  slides  below  us  on  the  trail. 

While  the  men  were  busy  about  camp  the  next 
morning,  I  slipped  off  alone  on  foot,  and,  following 
the  trail,  got  back  about  ten  o'clock  to  the  rock-slide 
where  they  had  killed  the  cony. 

A  wilder,  barrener,  more  desolate  land  of  crags 
and  peaks  I  never  beheld.  Eternal  silence  seemed  to 
wrap  it  round.  The  slide  was  of  broken  pieces  of 
rock,  just  as  if  the  bricks  from  an  immense  chimney 
had  cracked  off  and  rolled  down  into  the  valley  of 
the  roof.  Stunted  vegetation  grew  around,  with 
scraggly  wild  grass  and  a  few  snow-line  flowers,  for 
this  was  on  the  snow-line,  several  melting  banks 
glistening  in  the  morning  sun  about  me. 

I  crept  round  the  sharp  slope  of  the  peak  and  down 
to  the  edge  of  the  rock-slide.  "Any  living  thing 
in  that  long  heap  of  broken  rock ! "  I  said  to  myself 
incredulously.  That  barren,  blasted  pile  of  splintered 
peaks  the  home  of  an  animal?  Why,  I  was  on  the 
top  of  the  world!  A  great  dark  hawk  was  wheeling 
over  toward  Eagle  Cap  Mountain  in  the  distance ; 
far  below  me  flapped  a  band  of  ravens ;  and  down, 
down,  immeasurably  far  down,  glistened  the  small 
winding  waters  of  the  Iinnaha;  while  all  about  me 


114  SUMMER 

were  the  peaks,  lonely,  solitary,  mighty,  terrible ! 
Such  bleakness  and  desolation  ! 

But  here,  they  told  me,  they  had  shot  the  cony. 
I  could  not  believe  it.  Why  should  any  animal  live 
away  up  here  on  the  roof  of  the  world?  For  several 
feet  each  side  of  the  steep,  piled-up  rock  grew  spears 
of  thin,  wiry  grass  about  six  inches  high,  and  a  few 
stunted  flowers,  —  pussy's-paws,  alpine  phlox,  and 
beardtongue,  all  of  them  flat  to  the  sand,  —  and 
farther  down  the  sides  of  the  ravine  were  low,  twisted 
pines,  —  mere  prostrate  mats  of  trees  that  had  crept 
in  narrow  ascending  tongues,  up  and  up,  until  they 
could  hang  on  no  longer  to  the  bare  alpine  "slopes. 
But  here  above  the  stunted  pines,  here  in  the  slide 
rock,  where  only  mosses  and  a  few  flat  plants  could 
live,  —  plants  that  blossom  in  the  snow,  —  dwell  the 
conies. 

I  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  slide,  feeling  that  I 
had  had  my  labor  for  my  pains.  We  had  been  climb- 
ing these  peaks  in  the  hope  of  seeing  one  of  the  last 
small  bands  of  mountain  sheep  that  made  these  fast- 
nesses their  home.  But,  much  as  I  wished  to  see  a  wild 
mountain  sheep  among  the  crags,  I  wished  more  to 
see  the  little  cony  among  the  rocks.  "  As  for  the 
stork/'  says  the  Bible,  "  the  fir  trees  are  her  house. 
The  high  hills  are  a  refuge  for  the  wild  goats ;  and 
the  rocks  for  the  conies."  I  had  always  wondered 
about  those  conies — what  they  looked  like  and  how 
they  lived  among  the  rocks. 


THE    "CONY"  115 

I  knew  that  these  little  conies  here  in  the  slide  (if 
indeed  they  could  be  here)  were  not  those  of  the 
mountain-peaks  of  Palestine.  What  of  that !  The 
very  rocks  might  be  different  in  kind  from  the  rocks 
of  Nebo  or  Lebanon ;  but  peaks  are  peaks,  and  rocks 
are  rocks,  and  the  strange  little  "rabbits"  that 
dwell  in  their  broken  slides  are  all  conies  to  me.  The 
cony  of  the  Bible  is  the  little  hyrax,  a  relative  of  the 
elephant. 

I  sat  for  a  while  watching.  Was  this  the  place  ? 
I  must  make  sure  before  I  settled  down  to  waiting, 
for  when  in  all  my  life  again  might  I  have  this 
chance  ? 

Out  in  the  middle  of  the  slide  was  a  pile  of  rocks 
with  an  uneven  look  about  them,  as  if  they  had  been 
heaped  up  there  by  other  hands  than  those  that 
hurled  them  from  the  peak.  Going  quietly  out,  I  ex- 
amined them  closely,  and  found  the  perfect  print  of 
a  little  bloody  paw  on  one  of  them. 

This  was  the  right  place.  Here  was  where  they 
had  shot  the  specimen  brought  into  camp.  I  got 
back  to  my  seat,  ready  now  to  wait,  even  while  I 
knew  that  I  was  holding  back  the  camp  from  its 
day's  march. 

Perhaps  I  had  been  watching  for  half  an  hour, 
when  from  somewhere,  in  the  rock-slide  surely, 
though  I  could  not  tell,  there  sounded  a  shrill 
bleating  whistle,  not  unlike  the  whistles  of  the 
ground  squirrels  and  marmots  that  I  had  heard  all 


116 


SUMMER 


through  the  mountains,  yet  more  tremulous  and  not 
so  piercing. 

I  waited.  Presently  a  little  gray  form  crept  over 
a  stone,  stopped  and  whistled,  then  disappeared.  It 
was  my  cony ! 

If  you  can  think  of  Molly  Cottontail  turned  into 
the  shape  of  a  guinea-pig  about  eight  inches  long, 


with  positively  no  tail  at  all,  and  with  big  round 
broad  ears,  and  with  all  four  legs  of  equal  length  so 
that  the  creature  walks  instead  of  hopping,  —  if  you 
can  imagine  such  a  rabbit,  —  you  will  get  a  pretty 
clear  picture  of  the  cony,  or  pika,  or  "  little  chief 
hare." 

I  kept  as  still  as  the  stones.  Presently  the  plain- 
tive, bleating  whistle  sounded  from  nowhere  again 
—  behind  me,  beyond  me,  up  the  slide  or  down,  I 


THE   "CONY"  117 

could  not  tell.  The  rocks  were  rough,  rusty  chunks 
two  or  three  feet  long,  piled  helter-skelter  without 
form  or  order,  so  that  any  one  spot  in  the  slide  looked 
precisely  like  every  other  spot.  I  could  not  tell  just 
the  piece  the  cony  had  crossed,  once  my  eyes  were 
off  of  it,  nor  into  which  of  the  cracks  he  had  disap- 
peared. I  could  only  sit  still  and  wait  till  I  caught 
him  moving,  so  completely  did  his  color  blend  with 
the  rusty  brown  tone  of  the  slide. 

All  the  while  the  shrill,  piteous  call  kept  coming 
from  anywhere  in  the  slide.  But  it  was  not  the  call 
of  several  voices,  not  a  colony  whistling  at  once.  The 
conies  live  in  colonies,  but,  judging  from  the  single 
small  haycock  which  they  had  curing  in  the  sun,  I 
think  there  could  not  have  been  more  than  two  or 
three  pairs  of  them  in  this  particular  slide.  Possibly 
there  was  only  the  single  pair,  one  of  which  had  been 
shot,  for  presently,  when  my  eyes  grew  sharp  enough 
to  pick  the  little  creature  out  against  the  rocks,  I 
found  that  one  was  doing  all  the  calling,  and  that  for 
some  reason  he  was  greatly  disturbed. 

Now  he  would  stop  on  a  slab  and  whistle,  then 
dive  into  some  long  passage  under  the  stones,  to  re- 
appear several  feet  or  yards  away.  Here  he  would 
pause  to  listen,  and,  hearing  nothing,  would  call 
again,  waiting  for  an  answer  to  his  tremulous  cry 
which  did  not  come. 

Under  and  over  the  stones,  up  and  down  the  slide, 
now  close  to  me,  now  on  the  extreme  opposite  edge 


118  SUMMER 

of  the  pile  he  traveled,  nervously,  anxiously  looking 
for  something  —  for  some  one,  I  truly  think  ;  and 
my  heart  smote  me  when  I  thought  it  might  be  for 
the  dead  mate  whose  little  bare  foot-pads  had  left 
the  bloody  print  upon  the  rock. 

Up  and  down,  in  and  out,  he  ran,  calling,  calling, 
calling,  but  getting  no  answer  back.  He  was  the 
only  one  that  showed  himself,  the  only  live  one  I  have 
ever  seen,  but  this  one  I  followed,  as  he  went  search- 
ing and  crying  over  the  steep  rock-slide,  with  my  eye 
and  with  the  field-glasses,  until  long  past  noon  —  with 
a  whole  camp  down  the  canon  looking  for  me ! 

But  they  must  know  where  to  look.  Let  them 
climb  out  of  the  canon,  back  to  the  top  of  the  world 
to  the  cony  slide,  if  they  could  not  wait  for  me. 

Higher  up  than  the  mountain  sheep  or  the  goat 
can  live,  where  only  the  burrowing  pocket  gopher 
and  rare  field  mice  are  ever  found,  dwells  the  cony. 
This  particular  slide  was  on  one  of  the  minor  peaks, 
—  loftier  ones  towered  all  about,  —  nor  do  I  know 
just  how  high  it  was,  but  the  cony  dwells  above  the 
tree-line,  up  in  the  Arctic-Alpine  Zone,  in  a  world  of 
perpetual  snow,  from  ten  to  fourteen  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea. 

By  perpetual  snow  I  mean  that  the  snow-banks 
never  melt  in  the  shadowed  ravines  and  on  the  bare 
north  slopes.  Here,  where  I  was  watching,  the  rock- 
slide  lay  open  to  the  sun,  the  scanty  grass  was  green 
beyond  the  gully,  and  the  squat  alpine  flowers  were 


THE    "CONY"  119 

in  bloom,  the  saxifrage  and  a  solitary  aster  (April 
and  September  together !)  blossoming  in  the  edges  of 
the  snow  just  as  fast  as  the  melting  banks  allowed 
them  to  lift  their  heads.  But  any  day  the  wind  might 
come  down  from  the  north,  keen  and  thick  and  white 
about  the  summits,  and  leave  the  flowers  and  the  cony 
slide  covered  deep  beneath  a  drift. 

Spring,  summer,  and  autumn  are  all  one  season, 
all  crowded  together  —  a  kind  of  peak  piercing  for 
a  few  short  weeks  the  long,  bleak,  unbroken  land  of 
winter  here  on  the  roof  of  the  world. 

But  during  this  brief  period  the  thin  grass  springs 
up,  and  the  conies  cut  and  cure  it,  enough  of  it  to  last 
them  from  the  falling  of  the  September  snows  until 
the  drifts  are  once  more  melted  and  their  rock-slide 
warms  in  another  summer's  sun. 

For  the  cony  does  not  hibernate.  He  stays  awake 
down  in  his  catacombs.  Think  of  being  buried  alive 
in  pitch-black  night  with  snow  twenty-five  feet  thick 
above  you  for  nine  out  of  twelve  months  of  the 
year !  Yet  here  they  are  away  up  on  the  sides  of  the 
wildest  summits,  living  their  lives,  keeping  their 
houses,  rearing  their  children,  visiting  back  and  forth 
through  their  subways  for  all  this  long  winter,  pro- 
tected by  the  drifts  which  lie  so  deep  that  they  keep 
out  the  cold. 

As  I  looked  about  me  I  could  not  see  grass  enough 
to  feed  a  pair  of  conies  for  a  winter.  Right  near  me 
was  one  of  their  little  haycocks,  nearly  cured  and 


120  SUMMER 

ready  for  storing  in  their  barns  beneath  the  rocks; 
but  this  would  not  last  long.  It  was  already  early 
August  and  what  haying  they  had  to  do  must  be 
done  quickly  or  winter  would  catch  them  hungry. 

They  cut  the  grass  that  grows  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  slide,  and  cock  it  until  it  is  cured,  then  they  carry 
it  all  below  against  the  coming  of  the  cold;  and 
naturalists  who  have  observed  them  describe  with 
what  hurry  and  excitement  the  colony  falls  to  taking 
in  the  hay  when  bad  weather  threatens  to  spoil  it. 

Hardy  little  farmers  !  Bold  small  folk !  Why  climb 
for  a  home  with  your  tiny,  bare-soled  feet  above  the 
aerie  of  the  eagle  and  the  cave  of  the  soaring  con- 
dor of  the  Sierras?  Why  not  descend  to  the  warm 
valleys,  where  winter,  indeed,  comes,  but  cannot  lin- 
ger?—  or  farther  down  where  the  grass  is  always 
green,  with  never  a  need  to  cut  and  cure  a  winter's 
hay? 

I  do  not  know  why  —  nor  why  upon  the  tossing 
waves  the  little  petrel  makes  her  bed ;  nor  why,  be- 
neath the  waves,  "down  to  the  dark,  to  the  utter 
dark"  on 

"  The  great  gray  level  plains  of  ooze," 

the  "blind  white  sea-snakes"  make  their  home; 
nor  why  at  the  north,  in  the  fearful,  far-off,  frozen 
north,  the  little  lemmings  dwell;  nor  why,  nor  why. 
But  as  I  sat  there  above  the  clouds,  listening  to  the 
plaintive,  trembling  whistle  of  the  little  cony,  and 


THE   "CONY"  121 

hoping  his  mate  was  not  dead,  and  wondering  why  he 
stayed  here  in  the  barren  peak,  and  how  he  must  fare 
in  the  black,  bitter  winter,  I  said  over  to  myself  the 
lines  of  Kipling  for  an  answer, — 

"  And  God  who  clears  the  grounding  berg 
And  steers  the  grinding  floe, 
He  hears  the  cry  of  the  little  kit-fox 
And  the  lemming  on  the  snow." 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

TO  THE  TEACHER 

Let  me  say  again  that  the  best  thing  any  nature  book  can  do  for 
its  readers  is  to  take  them  out  of  doors  ;  and  that  the  best  thing  any  na- 
ture-study teacher  can  do  for  them  is  to  take  them  out  of  doors.  Think 
of  going  to  school  to  a  teacher  so  simple,  wholesome,  vigorous,  origi- 
nal, and  rich  in  the  qualities  of  the  soul  that  she  (how  naturally  we 
say  "  she  "  !)  —  that  she  comes  to  her  classroom  by  way  of  the  Public 
Garden,  carrying  a  bird-glass  in  her  hand  !  or  across  the  fields  with  a 
rare  orchid  in  her  hand,  and  the  freshness  and  sweetness  of  the  June 
morning  in  her  face  and  spirit !  Why,  I  should  like  to  be  a  boy  again 
just  to  have  such  a  teacher.  Instead  of  bird-songs  it  is  too  often 
school  gossip,  instead  of  orchids  it  is  clothes,  instead  of  the  open 
fields  it  is  the  round  of  the  schoolroom  that  most  teachers  are  ab- 
sorbed in.  Most  teachers  can  add  and  spell  much  better  than  they 
can  read,  because  they  do  not  know  the  literary  values  and  sugges- 
tions of  words.  Nothing  would  so  help  the  run  of  teachers  as  the  back- 
ground, the  observation  and  feeling,  that  would  come  from  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  out-of-doors  in  the  vicinity  of  their  schoolrooms. 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 
PAGE  1 

Learn  first  of  all  the  joy  of  walking.  It  is  enough  at  first  to  say 
"  I  am  going  to  take  a  woods  walk,"  with  nothing  smaller  in  mind 
to  do  or  hear  or  see.  Such  tramping  itself  is  one  of  the  very  best 
ways  of  meeting  the  wild  folk,  and  getting  acquainted  with  na- 
ture. Go  to  a  variety  of  places  —  the  seashore,  the  water-front, 
the  upland  pasture,  the  deep  swamps,  even  if  you  take  a  car-ride 
to  reach  them.  Then  select  the  place  nearest  at  hand  to  frequent 
and  watch  closely. 


124  NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

PAGE  3 

There  are  many  good  books  on  the  use  of  the  camera  for  nature- 
study.  Among  them  read  :  "  Nature  and  the  Camera  "  by  Dug- 
more  ;  "  Home  Life  of  Wild  Birds,"  by  Herrick. 

PAGE  4 

The  clover  blossom  and  the  bumblebee  :  Read  the  intensely  inter- 
esting book  of  Darwin's  on  the  cross-fertilization  of  flowers. 
You  will  also  find  readable  accounts  in  "  Nature's  Garden,"  by 
Mrs.  Blanchan. 

PAGE  5 

In  what  nursery  book  do  you  find  the  original  account  of  the 
House  that  Jack  Built  f 

PAGE  6 

Coccinella  septempunctata :  The  ladybirds,  or  ladybugs,  are  named 
according  to  the  number  of  their  spots  :  septempunctata   means 
seven-spotted.  Another  is  called  novemnotata,  nine-spotted. 
Sixty  species  of  birds :  Make  your  own  list.  Study  your  woods,  your 
neighborhood,  minutely  day  and  night  in  order  to  find  them  all. 

CHAPTER  II 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Set  the  students  to  watching  and  reporting  this  rare  but  very  in- 
teresting phase  of  wild  animal  life.  Nothing  will  tax  their  patience 
and  ingenuity  more  ;  nor  will  any  of  their  reports  need  so  careful 
scrutiny  and  weighing,  so  easy  is  it  to  be  mistaken. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  10 

"line  ":  the  end  of  the  race  ;  the  "tape  "  or  mark  set  for  runners 
in  a  contest. 

"  set-to  "  :  a  combat  or  fight. 

mix-up :  is  the  same  half -slangy  word  or  newspaper  expression  for 
a  general  fight. 
PAGE  11 

Paramcecium :  this  is  one  of  the  best  known  of  the  single-celled 
animals.  You  can  get  them  by  making  an  "  infusion  "  of  raw  po- 
tato, a  little  hay,  and  stagnant  water. 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  125 

PAGE  12 

A  writer  in  one  of  our  magazines  :  The  account  is  found  in  "  St. 
Nicholas  "for  May,  1913. 

two  big  slanting  cellar-doors :  These  were  in  the  shed  of  my  grand- 
father's farmhouse,  "  Underwood,"  and  covered  the  "  bulkhead  " 
of  the  cellar. 

PAGE   13 

The  [Massachusetts]  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Ani- 
mals :  has  its  headquarters  in  Boston.  It  does  a  great  work  for 
"  dumb  "  animals,  and  publishes  a  paper  called  "  Our  Dumb  Ani- 
mals "  that  every  home  and  school  should  have. 

PAGE  14 

follow  my  leader :  a  game  that  all  boys  know  and  love,  especially 
when  a  strong,  daring  leader  takes  the  game  in  hand. 

PAGE  15 

Mount  Hood :  is  the  highest  peak  of  the  Cascade  Range  in  Ore- 
gon. The  rope  hanging  down  from  the  summit  was  brought  up  on 
a  pack-horse  or  mule  (I  forget  which)  as  far  as  Tie-up  Rock, 
then  carried  to  the  summit  by  the  professional  guides  and  there 
fastened  for  the  safety  of  those  whom  they  take  to  the  top  during 
the  summer. 

PAGE  17 

a  wild  snowstorm :  for  a  fuller  description  of  this  storm  and  the 
whole  climb  see  the  chapter  in  "  Where  Rolls  the  Oregon  "  en- 
titled "  The  Butterflies  of  Mount  Hood." 


CHAPTER  III 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

PAGE  19 

" All  heaven  and  earth  are  still"  etc. :  this  is  from  Byron's 
"  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,"  a  poem  you  ought  to  read. 

PAGE  21 

Mr.  William  L.  Finley's  story  of  the  condor  appeared  in  the 
"  Century  Magazine."  It  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  bird  stories 
ever  written. 

This  is  the  season  ofjlowers :  among  the  helpful  and  interesting 
flower  books  for  field  use  are  "  Gray's  Manual,"  Mrs.  Dana's 


126  NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

"How  to  Know  the    Wild  Flowers,"  and  Chester    A.  Reed's 
little  vest-pocket  Guide  with  colored  plates  of  the  common  flowers. 
PAGE  25 

rain  down  little  toads :  1  saw  it  again  in  the  deserts  of  Oregon, 
the  quick  shower  making  millions  of  western  spadefoot  toads  hop 
up  out  of  the  sand.  As  the  sun  came  out  again,  presto  !  all  were 
gone  —  into  the  sand  out  of  sight. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

In  reading  this  story  point  out  the  very  narrow  margin  of  life 
among  the  wild  animals  ;  that  is  to  say,  show  how  little  a  thing  it 
often  is  that  turns  the  scales,  that  makes  for  life  or  death.  We  need 
all  our  powers,  and  all  of  them  developed  to  their  very  highest  de- 
gree of  efficiency  for  the  race  of  life.  Only  the  fittest  survive,  and 
for  these  the  race  is  often  under  too  great  handicaps. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

PAGE  27 

plumers  :  those  who  used  to  kill  birds  for  their  beautiful  plumage. 
Klamath  Lake  Reservation:  is  partly  in  California.  It  was  set  aside 
by  President  Roosevelt. 

the  coyote  :  is  the  prairie  or  desert  wolf.  He  is  larger  than  the 
red  fox,  but  smaller  than  the  gray,  or  timber,  wolf. 

PAGE  29 

homesteader :  one  who  settles  upon  land  under  the  Federal  home- 
steading  laws. 

CHAPTER  V 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

With  a  map  of  Boston  follow  the  course  of  this  title  —  from  the 
crowded  wharf  and  water-front  to  the  wide,  country-like  fields  of 
Franklin  Park.  It  is  a  five-cent  car-ride,  a  good  half-day's  walk  if 
you  watch  the  wild  life  on  the  way.  Map  out  suck  a  course  in  your 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  127 

own  city  and  take  your  pupils  over  it  on  a  tramp,  Watching  for 
glimpses  of  animal  and  bird  life  and  for  the  sight  of  Nature's  face  — 
the  sky,  the  wind,  the  sunshine,  trees,  grass,  flowers,  etc.  Make  the 
most  of  your  city  chance  for  nature-study.  It  is  an  important  matter. 


FOR   THE   PUPIL 

T  wharf,  long  one  of  the  busiest  fish  wharves  in  the  world,  per- 
haps the  busiest,  is,  as  I  write,  on  the  point  of  being  abandoned 
by  the  fish-dealers  of  Boston,  who  are  to  occupy  a  huge  new  pier 
at  South  Boston,  built  by  the  State  at  a  cost  of  about  a  million 
dollars.  Franklin  Field  is  a  great  athletic  field  adjoining  Franklin 
Park  in  the  southern  part  of  Boston. 

PAGE  39 

list  of  saints:  these  immortal  names  are  carved  in  various  places 
on  the  outer  walls  of  the  Public  Library. 
cranium  :  the  head,  or  rather  the  skull. 

herring  gull :  Larus  argentatus,  one  of  the  largest  and  common- 
est of  the  harbor  birds,  and  very  much  like  the  Western  gull  of 
Three-Arch  Rocks.  It  is  a  pearl-gray  and  pure  white  creature 
with  black  on  the  wings.  The  immature  birds  are  a  brownish  gray 
and  look  like  an  entirely  different  species  for  the  first  year. 

PAGE  40 

Boston,  Baltimore,  etc. :  Make  a  study  of  your  city  parks  and  the 
spots  of  green  and  the  open  spaces  where  the  wild  things  may  be 
found.  Go  to  the  Public  Library  and  ask  for  the  books  that  treat 
of  the  wild  life  of  your  city  :  "  Wild  Birds  in  City  Parks,"  by 
Walter,  will  be  such  a  book  for  Chicago  ;  «  Birds  in  the  Bush," 
by  Torrey,  and  "  Birds  of  the  Boston  Public  Garden,"  by  Wright, 
for  Boston. 

Charles  River  Basin :  the  wide  fresh-water  part  of  Charles  River 
just  above  the  dam  and  near  Beacon  and  Charles  Streets. 
Scup  :  another  name  is  porgie,  porgy,  scuppaug. 
Squid:  (Ommastrephes  illecebrosus),  a  cephalopod,  or  cuttlefish, 
used  for  bait  along  the  Atlantic  coast. 

The  "  cuttle-bone  "  in  canaries'  cages  is  taken  from  the  genus 
Sepia. 

Squeteague :  pronounced  skwe-teg' ;  also  called  weak  fish  and  sea- 
trout. 


128  NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

Scallops:  are  shellfish  the  large  muscle  of  which  is  much  prized 

for  food. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  fish  kinds  brought  in  at  T  Wharf. 

PAGE  41 

Grand  Banks:  a  submarine  plateau  in  the  Atlantic,  eastward 
from  Newfoundland  ;  noted  as  a  fishing-ground.  Its  depth  is 
thirty  to  sixty  fathoms. 

the  Georges:  a  smaller  bank  lying  off  Cape  Cod. 
"  We're  Here";  the  name  of  the  schooner  in  Kipling's  "Cap- 
tains Courageous." 

Quincy  Market :  an  old  well-known  market  in  Boston. 
King's  Chapel:  on  Tremont  Street.    It  was  begun  in  1749  and  is 
still  used  for  worship.    See  "  Roof  and  Meadow  "  for  a  fuller  ac- 
count of  the  sparrows. 

PAGE  42 

rim  rock:  the  edging  of  rock  around  the  flats  and  plains  of  the 

sage  deserts  of  Oregon. 

Boston  Common :  known  to  every  child  who  has  read  the  history 

of  our  country.  The  "Garden"  is  across  Charles  Street  from  the 

Common. 

PAGE  43 

Agassiz  Museum :  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  at  Harvard 

University.    It  is  popularly  called  the  Agassiz  Museum  in  honor 

of  the  great  naturalist  Louis  Agassiz,  who  founded  it. 

See  Sarah  K.  Bolton's  "  Famous  Men  of  Science." 

Arnold  Arboretum :  is  near  the  western  edge  of  Boston  ;  one  of  the 

most  celebrated  gardens  of  trees  in  the  world. 

Through  the  heaven's  wide  pathless  way :  from  "  II  Penseroso,"  by 

Milton. 

PAGE  44 

Swales :  wet,  grassy,  or  even  bushy,  meadows. 


CHAPTER  VI 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  46 

The  tree-toad:  (Hyla  versicolor) ;  he  is  said  by  country  people  to 
prophesy  rain. 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  129 

pennyroyal:  is  one  of  the  small  aromatic  mints. 

Wilson  Flagg :  one  of  our  earliest  outdoor  writers.    Look  up  his 

life  in  any  American  biographical  dictionary. 


CHAPTER  VII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

For  a  fuller  account  of  this  Wild  Bird  Reservation  see  the  chapter 
in  "  Where  Rolls  the  Oregon,"  called  "  Three-Arch  Rocks  Reserva- 
tion." Bring  out  in  your  reading  the  point  I  wished  to  make,  namely 
that  these  great  reservations  of  State  and  Federal  Government  are 
not  only  to  preserve  bird  and  animal  life,  but  also  to  preserve  nature 
—  a  portion  of  the  earth  —  wild  and  primitive  and  thrilling,  against 
the  constant  encroachments  of  civilization.  Interest  your  pupils  in 
their  own  local  parks,  preserves,  etc.,  and  if  they  have  farms  or 
wood-lots,  have  them  post  them  and  set  them  aside  as  their  personal 
sanctuaries  for  wild  life. 


FOR  THE  PUPIL 

PAGE  57 

Tillamook:  the  name  of  a  town  near  the  coast  of  Oregon. 
at  the  mouth  of  the  bay :  Tillamook  Bay,  where  the  bar  is  only  about 
thirty  feet  wide,  making  the  passage  extremely  difficult  and  dan- 
gerous. 

Three-Arch  Rocks  Reservation  :  was  set  aside  by  President  Roose- 
velt. Credit  for  this  and  the  other  Oregon  Reservations  is  largely 
due  to  Mr.  William  L.  Finley  and  the  Audubon  Societies. 

PAGE  59 

Shag  Rock :  so  named  for  the  black  cormorants  that  nest  upon  it, 
for  these  birds  are  commonly  known  as  "  shags." 

PAGE  60 

the  sea-lions :  were  of  the  species  known  as  Steller's  sea-lions. 
reversed  in  shape :  I  mean  the  close  hind  flippers,  the  tapering 
hind  end  of  the  body,  gave  them  an  unnatural  shape  —  reversed. 
JEolus  :  the  god  of  the  winds. 


130  NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

CHAPTER  VIII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Set  the  pupils  to  watching  for  evidences  of  mother-love  among  the 
lower  creatures,  where  we  do  not  think  of  finding  it;  stir  them  to 
look  for  unreported  acts,  and  the  hidden,  less  easily  observed  ways. 
Such  a  suggestion  might  be  the  turning  of  a  new  page  for  them  in 
the  book  of  nature. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  65 

Cud:  the  ball  of  grass  or  hay  that  the  cow  keeps  bringing  up 

from  her  first  stomach  to  be  chewed  and  swallowed,  going  then 

into  the  second  stomach,  where  it  is  digested. 

stanchions  :  the  iron  or  wooden  fastening  about  the  cow's  neck  in 

the  stall. 

mother-principle :  the  instinct  or  unconscious  impulse  of  all  living 

things  to  reproduce  their  kind. 

PAGE  66 

spores :  the  name  of  the  seed  dust  of  the  ferns. 

the  hunter  family :  these  are  the  spiders  that  build  no  nets  or  webs 

for  snaring  their  prey,  but  hunt  their  prey  over  the  ground. 

PAGE  69 

Toadjish :  See  the  chapter  in  the  "  Fall  of  the  Year  "  called  "  In 
the  Toadfish's  Shoe." 

PAGE  70 

Surinam  toads :  pronounced  soo-ri-nam'. 

Mother-passion  .  .  .  in  the  life  of  reptiles :  many  readers,  seeing  this 
statement  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  where  the  essay  first  ap- 
peared, have  written  me  of  how  when  they  were  boys  they  sa'w 
snakes  swallow  their  young  —  or  at  least  killed  the  old  snakes 
with  young  in  them  !  Is  n't  that  mother-love  among  the  reptiles  ? 
But  every  time  the  story  has  been  about  garter  snakes  or  mocca- 
sins or  some  other  ovoviviparous  snake;  that  is,  a  snake  that  does 
not  lay  eggs,  but  keeps  them  within  her  body  till  they  hatch,  then 
gives  birth  to  the  young.  I  have  never  seen  a  snake  swallow  its 
young ;  though  big  snakes  do  eat  little  ones  whenever  they  can 
get  them. 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  131 

CHAPTEK  IX 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 

Mother  Carey's  chickens  are  any  of  the  small  petrels.    The  little 
stormy  petrels  of  poetry  and  story  belong  to  the  Old  World  and 
only  wander  occasionally  over  to  our  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
PAGE  79 

petrel :  pronounced  pet'rel,  so  called  in  allusion,  perhaps,  to  Saint 
Peter's  walking  on  the  sea. 

CHAPTER  X 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

PAGE  88 

P  Ranch :  is  one  of  the  Hanley  system  of  cattle  ranches,  which 
cover  a  wide  area  almost  seventy-five  miles  long.  The  buildings 
and  tree-fences,  the  stockades  and  sheds  make  it  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  I  have  ever  seen.  This  story  was  told  to  me  by  Jack 
Wade,  the  "  boss  of  the  buckaroos."  "  Buckaroo  "  is  a  corruption 
of  the  Spanish  vaquero,  cowherd. 
Winnemucca :  find  the  place  on  the  map. 

PAGE  91 

buckskin:  a  horse  of  a  soft  yellowish  color.  He  got  his  name 
Peroxide  Jim  from  the  resemblance  of  the  color  of  his  coat  to 
that  of  human  hair  bleached  by  peroxide  of  hydrogen. 


CHAPTER  XI 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  100 

paper  nests  in  trees:  The  common  yellow-jacket  hornet  builds 
similar  large  round  nests  in  bushes,  and  other  wasps  build  paper 
nests  behind  walls,  under  the  ground,  in  holes,  etc. 


132  NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

PAGE  107 

bite  into  something  poisonous :  Send  to  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture at  Washington  for  the  little  booklet  on  our  poisonous 
plants.  It  is  free. 


CHAPTER  XII 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

Try  to  bring  home  to  the  class  the  profoundly  interesting  facts 
of  animal  distribution  —  where  they  live,  and  how  they  came  to  live 
where  they  do.  Point  out  the  strange  shifts  resorted  to  by  various 
creatures  who  live  at  the  various  extremes  of  height  or  depth  or  cold 
or  heat  to  enable  them  to  get  a  living. 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  121 

"And  God  ivho  clears ":  these  lines  of  Kipling  I  am  quoting  as  I 
first  found  them  printed.  I  see  in  his  collected  verse  that  they 
are  somewhat  changed. 


14  DAY  USE 

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